Vladimir Senkov

58 Comments

    • Options Trader: Wednesday Outlook [view article]
      I was always wondering who makes US economy contract and Chinese economy expand. Now you finally explained this. It's JPM and GS. Wow! and i mean, WOW!
      You know why i love markets? In many disciplines you can argue your entire life and never know if you were right or wrong about your hypothesis. Thankfully, market is sort of a universal "prove me wrong" machine. So i'm having a tough time understanding why one would want to continuously call Shenanigans. If one is convinced that his point of view is ultimately correct, why would one tell anybody? One would just keep it quiet and make more bets.
      Let's take a look at your FRE bet. Why are you pulling out of it if you're right? If you're wrong, would you tell us how you came to understand that?
      The reality is, you argue about macro stuff for the sake of the argument, it has little to do with your trading, i mean gambling. It's just smoke and mirrors. You went ahead and gambled on FRE options because your arguments empowered you to think that you have some sort of an edge against the market, that you are superior to it, that you understand something others dont. Then you either have to pull out without a good explanation (why look back anyways, sunk cost, it just became too risky) or you have to call Shenanigans or perhaps you got lucky and won. Either way this empowers you for the next round of arguments.
      Is arguing improving your trades? I doubt it.
      Is it entertaining? Initially. It quickly gets old, unfortunately. I think you may need more cartoons!       Aug 20 01:06 PM
    • 12 Great Investment Strategies [view article]
      Is this a direct quote from Rob Arnot:
      "Since probabilistically the largest cap stocks will underperform all other stocks". If so, his is probably another chapter I'd skip, along with George Gilder's :)       Aug 09 12:39 PM
    • Cornerstone’s Unauthorized Liquidation [view article]
      How much is your broker charging you to short this thing, if you don't mind me asking? Jul 30 04:58 PM
    • Even the Legends Are Losing in Today's Markets [view article]
      ehart500, well said. but, folks like Soros have been trying to do the kind of studying of economic environment for a long time and i'm sure Bill Miller also believes that he does the same thing. It's in the rear view mirror that his genius gets reduced, in your words, to "applying rules of thumb" :)
      Every study is a logical chain that can be reduced to following a few rules of thumb, usually a lot less than the those doing the studying would let you believe. Think mortgage paper buyers . . . their rule of thumb was "real estate always goes up". They gave birth to an entire industry of people who's rule of thumb was "those guys are idiots". Guess we know who had a better rule but again, only in rear view mirror. I'm sure you can dig around and find people who explained why this paper wasn't worth 99% of the face value 5 years ago. Some of them made their bets and lost. Then there were people who made those same bets 4 years ago and lost again. Then 3 years ago. Only the ones lucky enough to made and stick to these bets in the last couple of years came out ahead. For the market isn't a judge telling you who is right and who is wrong but a voting public that can be as stupid and wrong as anyone else and indeed often is for very long periods of time.
       Jul 11 11:52 PM
    • Even the Legends Are Losing in Today's Markets [view article]
      4 out of 124? Jul 11 10:28 PM
    • Even the Legends Are Losing in Today's Markets [view article]
      ANTS, either this is only obvious in the rear view mirror or you are a genius. You pick :)
       Jul 11 10:21 PM
    • Even the Legends Are Losing in Today's Markets [view article]
      Question for the author. You said "Maybe, but I doubt it." Why do you doubt it, exactly?
      Think of a simple experiment. Stadium full of people. Everybody flips a coin. Tails you sit down, heads you keep flipping.
      After several flips you would notice that some people are still standing. Yet more flips a couple of idiots are still there! Incredible! Must be the best coin flippers in the world!
      I am talking of course of the survivorship bias. We don't hear of most market participants. They aren't on "gurufocus" or on CNN. They aren't writing books about how they lost 10% every year for 20 years. Most of them don't anyways. And when they do we don't read their books, unless we are suicidal. Yes, skill plays a role. But we can't judge that skill simply by looking at their performance. How can one judge a skill? First, you have to define what that skill is, exactly. Beating S&P 500 isn't a skill. It's a dream.
      Skill is being able to do something quite specific.       Jul 11 10:17 PM
    • Lehman and Merrill Lynch Default Risk Charts [view article]
      Stock is essentially a call option on any retained earnings that may eventually come to be. I guess the time value of this imagined option is diminishing and that explains why the stock trades lower now than it did when the CDSes were at their highs. Can one calculate the "expiration time" for these hedge funds, by that i mean LEH and MER, because that's what they are, after all. I know, i know, they call themselves "financial services companies" but i call anyone who can take positions with unregulated leverage a hedge fund, not because these positions are hedged, but because of the "unregulated"... aspect. Can you get a nobel for a formula for calculating the expiration date? Might be useful for people to plan vacations, etc :) Jul 11 10:07 PM
    • Putting $1T Subprime Mortgage Losses in Perspective [view article]
      Ok, so Soros mentioned 1B as some number that he said IMF also mentioned. Fine. What is that number represent exactly? Just because he wasn't exact on that or was misquoted doesn't mean we can use it to paint a rosy picture, or does it?
      We live in a reflexive world, as Soros himself would put it.
      If some paper somewhere lost 1T of the value, it certainly doesn't mean that that can be called a "global subprime loss".
      Think of what is derived from what and how this 1T came to be exactly. I think if you really consider the reflexive relationships as Soros would do, you would understand why he considers this such a serious crisis.       Jul 11 09:46 PM
    • Can Nortel Pull an AMD on Cisco? Enough To Make It Worth Another Look? [view article]
      I've been hearing those "competing with cisco" theme and later "number 2 supplier" theme from NT management ever since they acquired Bay. Nowdays there are plenty of suppliers out there and unfortunately NT is not a no 2. If NT management instead focused on areas where they could actually win customers (instead of just drumming up on the competing with cisco theme) they could have bought Juniper back when it was cheap, they could have grown their security products and other acquisitions into something that would continue to be relevant today, they would continue to innovate in the voice space, they would have good products.
      Instead, they've spent years and millions on projects and products that didn't go nowhere, there there was F.Dunn, then Bill Owens with PEC acquisition and "getting ship under control" mode of operation, then MikeZ with more cost cutting and outsourcing. No, they aren't trying to be No2. They are trying to get stable and control their expenses so that they're not vulnerable in the market place (MikeZ wouldn't want any hostile takeovers) and they'll perhaps try to make some money in service. The "No2 against Cisco" theme will continue on and off for some time, but it is more of a distraction, it's not for real.
      If you are still in doubt, take a look at Nortel's router portfolio. I know, I know, 8600 is a good box, but that's about it, really.
      To compete with Cisco you need a little bit more than that in the product department. Where can you get those products? You can either acquire them (unlikely, although another small move like Tasman is possible) or develop (possible, but takes a long time and is very costly, especially given the "milking" culture. Both of these alternatives are incompatible with cost savings agenda currently in place. Better operations is not a replacement for innovation, no matter how much better, and I think they know it.
      So service business and deals, deals, deals. Continue to milk huge customer and install bases, sell off a few divisions, cut costs some more. At some point sell the remainder to someone who is in the service business or perhaps even some private equity (if Canada allows that, i doubt it will).       May 21 07:53 PM
    • Nationwide WiMAX: Who Benefits? [view article]
      Guys with negative comments seem to be missing the key point of the article. The question the author was trying to answer isn't about wimax being great or not for consumers.
      I'm sure this will not be a negative for the consumer. It will either be useless (worst case scenario) or great (best case scenario) or somewhere in between. Either way consumer doesn't lose. Question the article attempts to focus in is that of investment. Lots of folks invested have in this technology, one way or another. Some industry players who haven't invested in it directly might be able to benefit from its rollout. All the author was trying to do here was to figure out who stands to benefit from their investment or market position, if anyone. Yes he ends up with a cynical conclusion, but that doesn't mean he is wrong.
      I sort of agree that Intel is more likely to benefit from this long term versus, for example, Sprint.
      Consumer might benefit eventually, but that will require someone other than Sprint to roll out another wimax network. I doubt switching to wimax from other technologies, fixed and to a lesser extent mobile, will make sense until Sprint has some competition there.       May 11 08:17 PM
    • Shanghai Market Surges 9.3% on Stamp Tax Cut [view article]
      can you drop an f bomb here? i guess you can :) Apr 24 09:33 AM
    • How Much Can We Blame the Uptick Rule? [view article]
      i think it's a huge mistake to try to "study" or rather "explain away" the effects of the rule using statistics such as volatility that covers a great number of equities. it is likewise a mistake to look at the direction of the general market and try to explain away any effect that the rule may have had.
      if the rule had visible effects, such effect would mostly be felt on equities with limited liquidity and such effect is also likely to be temporary.
      having said that, i don't believe this particular rule is what is needed. if the problem they are trying to fix has to do with "bear" raids or hedge fund activity, then why create a rule that only applies to the short side? why not control the problem at the source: regulate use of leverage, as in "reg T".
      it looks like individual investor is already regulated well in that regard. If hedge funds are a problem, add some regulation there instead of trying to invent a bogus rule like an uptick rule. what's next? no selling after the "double top" pattern has been formed? :)
      so i'm glad they have gotten rid of this rule some time ago, but it looks like they didn't do enough regulating leverage, or we wouldn't be having these funds (i mean gamblers) losing their 32-to-1 leveraged MBS bets.       Apr 06 01:47 AM
    • Barclays Launches a Carry-Trade Currency ETN [view article]
      I found it interesting to know that the ETN is long on the yen. This is what most carry traders where short on for quite some time now. I think this one might have a chance when yen continues to appreciate due to . . . carry trade continuing to unwind. I'd also like to believe that USD will eventually bounce, but i'm afraid 3-6 months is far too optimistic. Perhaps in a year or two. There must be a bounce, eventually. Question is, from where? from 2 USD per euro, bounce back to 1.9? Mar 30 07:56 PM
    • Pause For Concern On Chinese Currency ETN [view article]
      This is interesting to me because I already have an outstanding short on MS. So it if was to fail or be in some kind of trouble shareholders would be last in line while creditors (including, i'm assuming, holders of this new note) would be closer to the front. if what happened to the BSC was to be replayed there, i would do OK with this type of hedge. So i'm not recommending to short MS, but if you already are anyways, this might be an interesting play. Mar 29 03:34 PM
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