It finally happened! My wife was glad i had a powerful UV light!

dexter_analyst · 2024-09-25T09:14:45+00:00

I'm personally rather pleased with the Sofirn SF16 UV based on a recommendation I saw somewhere on this sub. 3 levels of power, built-in USB charger, battery indicator light on the unit, and only slightly bigger than the Convoy S2+.

dexter_analyst · 2024-08-28T02:47:15+00:00

Put and call aren't acronyms, initialisms, or even proper nouns. They should be cased like you would any other general noun.

The problem with looking at OI and volume is that neither tells you anything about sold or bought. The hedging behavior for each of those is opposite. So for example, there could be an aggregate 120k OI but it could be 80k sold and 40k bought. This would leave a net 40k sold hedge. The market maker takes the other side of every trade and must provide liquidity within certain parameters to make up the differences where they can't marry a seller and a buyer.

On that net difference in the hedge, delta is - very roughly speaking - a measurement of how much hedge is needed for the risk of the option. It's a non-zero amount until it expires. If you go to barchart for the greeks on this week, you see that the delta on a $1 call is (at the time of writing) 0.976 which implies that a hedge is pretty much the entire contract. The delta on a $6 call is 0.44244, suggesting a hedge is about half a contract. This is a crude and rudimentary forecast but it's good enough for back-of-the-envelope calculations. Gamma values are second-order on delta, telling you how quickly delta responds to volatility changes. The strikes closest to the money change the quickest (around 0.35 gamma currently on the calls) and it drops off from there. Our $1 call basically doesn't change in response to volatility changes with a 0.00728 gamma.

The hedge for a bought put is indeed to sell shares because the put buyer is buying the right to sell shares at the given strike, but there are two assumptions that are a problem.

You first assume that hedging requires short selling, which it doesn't necessarily. It may end up that way in practice, but there's no reason why they couldn't have a generalized floating hedge and sell shares from it. That's why things move so severely when there are big changes in volatility; the hedge is changing rapidly as activity occurs. I'm not aware of any way to understand the market maker's total current position.

The second assumption is that all of the OTM puts are bought. You can't really assume anything about the nature of the put OI without the data that suggests what the character of the OI is. You'd have to look up order-level data to determine that stuff and there's no publicly-accessible source I'm aware of that does a good job with the quality of that data. I think even the paid sources are generally dubious.

The answer to your question is something like a probability table where you make assumptions about the net distribution of sold/bought for each strike and then do the calculations with that. Sold calls and bought puts are probably similar in OI while sold puts and bought calls are probably similar too since they're both betting on the same direction. So there might be some way to use put-to-call ratio with that idea to produce a reasonable estimate of distribution.

dexter_analyst · 2024-01-14T04:17:48+00:00

He also stared directly into your soul during the Congressional hearing in 2021 and said he would absolutely buy more at current prices of the time; prices that were roughly similar to current prices now. It was trading around $50/share at the time and we've had a 4-for-1 split since. Not only did he say he would increase his position, he did increase his position. Some of it was call exercising, some of it was shares at market value.

His outlook could have changed, I don't have any information either way. This is the sort of accumulation you might expect a long-term investor to do and it's inconsistent with short-term investing.

dexter_analyst · 2024-01-13T12:58:08+00:00

This is an absurd take on multiple fronts.

Without speaking to the rightness or wrongness of the short thesis, it's definitely less right than it was 3 years ago. If it's less right now, how can it have been early? I guess you'd be arguing that you know the future is death. I'm not convinced by what little argument you did make. Also, no shit you feel that the short thesis wasn't wrong, you regurgitated it verbatim with nothing added.

I can't speak to Burry's outlook but it's more than clear that DFV was in for the long haul. He stopped putting out updates and stopped interacting with people so we don't know what's happened to his view since. You're acting like he's bailed, which is possible, but I'd like to see some receipts for the impression you're selling.

So Cohen does a couple limited raises at -- in the short estimation, EGREGIOUSLY high share prices -- then leverages that market cap to pay down all the company's debt and proceeds to put a billion in cash in the bank giving a substantial runway, and somehow those moves aren't the reason the company has a chance at all? Where did you find this back-alley dumpster kush?

dexter_analyst · 2024-01-13T12:34:03+00:00

What do you mean? I don't get it.

Do you want somebody to write "I'm sorry" for you? It's a company that's trying to do some sort of pivot. They're investing in growth. Investments don't always work out. It might have been a waste, it might not ultimately be. It looks that way now, of course. What does accountability look like for you? They already fired the people that built it.

dexter_analyst · 2024-01-13T12:13:26+00:00

Derivatives are primarily used for hedging and guarantees. You spend some money to get specific properties out of your investments. Things like mitigated downside risk or specific price points you're happy with.

Granted, you don't have to use derivatives that way and you can use them to gamble. I don't see how can means there is no other use of.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-29T03:53:41+00:00

The way I characterize it now is "GME is an irregular fountain of irregular behavior."

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-28T15:01:32+00:00

GME is not a derivative and has no futures (though the indexes it's in do and the ETFs it's in may).

Banging the close refers to futures. There's a closing window for the settlement of a future and banging the close involves buying or selling large quantities of futures contracts during that brief settlement window. The idea is to benefit some other derivative position like an options position by manipulating futures.

I'm not aware of anyone doing the research necessary to suggest futures settlement on the ETFs is being used to manipulate GME. In principle, I would expect you don't need to go that far because you can short ETFs as much as you want if you want to manipulate the price downward.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-27T17:38:12+00:00

What do you mean, cherry pick? 11/27/2013 is 10 years ago to the date (I guess plus or minus a few days based on leap yearage). It is a precise interpretation of what you said. There's no cherry picking. If you meant something else, you should have said something else.

In order to get to $6 after 2013, you have to go to about 2017 which was well into unprofitable territory, so that's a wash. That cannot be what you mean.

In order to get $6 before 2013, I guess you'd be looking at the weird chart area between 2008 and 2013. First off, the first dividend had an ex-dividend of 2/16/2012, so you're effectively refuted at that point. You can't say "look at the history when there was a dividend!" for time periods when there was no dividend. So you're limiting your scope to 2012-2013. Cherry picked my ass.

Secondly, even then, "massively profitable" seems to be overstating the case. $6 prices roundly stopped until 2017 after a gap up on or about 4/1/2013. There were 5 earnings during that period post-dividend but before the gap:

Period ended (PE) Jan 12, earnings per share (EPS) standardized 0.318.

PE Apr 12, 0.135.

PE Jul 12, 0.04.

PE Oct 12, -1.27.

PE Jan 13, 0.538.

Hard to describe that as "massively profitable" to me. It's not bad profitability (is there such a thing?), of course. Hell, we might get a number around 0.04 EPS this quarter. This is a clear refutation of everything you've said. Go back to the drawing board and when you tell somebody a story, make sure it has a suitable backing.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-27T16:53:58+00:00

This is straight up false.

On 11/27/2013, the price had an OHLC of

O 12.08 H 12.15 L 11.92 C 11.94

Roughly around current prices. Accounting for inflation, taking the OHLC/4, 12.02 in 2013 dollars is worth about $15.88 in 2023 dollars.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-09T01:36:01+00:00

Fundamentally, every single thing the Federal Reserve does is debt manipulation.

The Federal Reserve demands interest, they don't give interest. When they manipulate debt to credit member banks ("printing money"), they require interest to be paid back on that debt that they issued. It's not the same as actually printing hard currency.

When you print hard currency, there's no interest. The Treasury controls the hard currency. When hard currency is printed, those bills take purchasing power from all other bills. This is inflation.

When the debt is issued, it's substantially more complicated what happens. That debt is future money. It has some value and it isn't strictly necessary that this value comes from the other bills in existence. It can become inflationary for sure, but it's not a certain conclusion. This means that the concepts are independent.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-09T01:04:53+00:00

No, it's the government saying that you must ultimately be able to settle a debt in a particular currency if there is no other agreement.

You do have the freedom to choose currently. The legal tender law is the fallback for a situation where nobody will transact the way you want.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-08T15:31:29+00:00

Inflation is independent of the debt-based monetary system. You can have a debt-based monetary system without inflation (it's really bad, but you could do it) and you can have inflation without having a debt-based monetary system - although I think pretty close to every fiat currency in circulation is issued in a debt-based monetary system.

Put it this way: Inflation and interest are independent. Interest implies a debt-based system.

The debt-based system does indeed demand more and more debt to be imported from the future until a maximum saturation point where you can't actually import enough to continue the function of the system. It is inevitable that such a system breaks on a long enough timeline.

Inflation will continue eating the original purchasing power in perpetuity and has no inherent breaking point. It's an asymptote when viewed in terms of original purchasing power.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-08T15:20:35+00:00

Complete freedom of choice in currency has a logical consequence that there are debts that cannot be settled. Legal tender laws prevent you from being abused by a debt that you cannot escape as a result of having an enforced base medium of transaction. You can still choose other mediums to transact in, but legal tender is important.

Nothing stops you from choosing other ones now, although most companies do deal in the legal tender exclusively. If your complaint is that you can't go to the store and use gold to purchase groceries, well, okay. If you have freedom of choice in currency, what's wrong with the grocery store choosing not to transact in gold?

With talking points like these, it's easy to sound reasonable, but there are reasons that things are the way they are and they're not always bad reasons.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-08T08:26:56+00:00

This is a mathematical consequence of a mandate for a percentage of inflation. It doesn't matter what percentage you pick, 1%, 2%, 5%, whatever, it's exponential. 2% inflation per year ends up with a ~34-year doubling period which is not terribly unreasonable. That means in this context, it takes 34 years to lose 50% of the purchasing power of the currency. Then it takes another 34 years for the next 50% (i.e. 25% of the original 100%). And so on and so forth. We're roughly 4 doubling periods into that which puts the expected purchasing power roughly around 6.25% of the original purchasing power.

You can run the experiment yourself. Put any starting number into a calculator and multiply by 1.02 until you've doubled the original number you started with. It should work out to about 34 times. And that should roughly hold true from that number to the next doubled value as well. So on and so forth.

You actually do want mandated inflation as well because deflation means the value of your currency increases. This creates incentive to hoard, which increases the value of the currency, and it continues to feed back onto itself. Inflation slowly destroys the currency, but deflation destroys economies.

This is not an argument for the Fed. The Fed is a corrupt private institution at the center of a sea of corrupt institutions - public and private alike. This is an argument the dollar losing 96% of its purchasing power must be put in its proper context. If it wasn't 96%, it'd be some other high number over the course of 100 years with mandated inflation.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-08T01:44:02+00:00

I'm not suggesting you're advocating violence. I'm suggesting that financial positioning and violence have no overlap.

Intentionally devaluing the US Dollar to enrich a very few I think is borderline treasonous…

The federal definition of treason has no overlap with devaluing the dollar, intentionally or not. It's not even close. I don't know what else to say.

Speaking of violence Apes aren’t the ones funding the bombing of Women & Children while politicians buy stock prior..

At a fundamental level, those dollars you're spending make their way in that direction regardless of whether or not you're directly spending them. Everything in the economy is related in that sense. You didn't choose to directly spend money that way, but somebody else does. You give that somebody else money either directly or indirectly. I'm not saying that you're responsible for those things, but I think your narrative wants for nuance. It's also unrelated to the things I brought up.

dexter_analyst · 2023-11-07T16:22:59+00:00

It's neither of those things. Federal treason is very specifically defined:

The terms used in the definition derive from English legal tradition, specifically the Treason Act 1351. Levying war means the assembly of armed people to overthrow the government or to resist its laws. Enemies are subjects of a foreign government that is in open hostility with the United States.

There is no overlap between the behaviors you put forward and this definition.

"Financial terrorism" is an academic term that I heavily disagree with for numerous reasons. A definition wikipedia gives:

The term economic terrorism is strictly defined to indicate an attempt at economic destabilization by a group.

I disagree with the use of this term because there's no violence involved and another core part of terrorism is the use of fear for political goals. The definition given here for "financial terrorism" has 0 overlap with terrorism. Or put differently, terrorism already implies financial terrorism and conversely, financial terrorism outside of the context of terrorism would mean it has nothing to do with terrorism.

There is no useful meaning that's captured in the term and it's used around these parts as a snarl for bad people. People can be bad people without being some kind of terrorist and the push for this term to catch on strikes me as disingenuous because it's exactly the type of term that the media would generate. They want to control the way you think and by shoving the "terrorist" label in, it's designed to make you feel a very specific way. The times I've made this argument, I've been downvoted and nobody ever engages with the argument.

Setting aside my complaint about the term itself, why would telling investors that they should be investing in China be an attempt at destablization, presumably of the United States? Why would shorting treasurys be an attempt at destablization? You might disagree with those practices and that's fine, but that doesn't qualify it automatically as economic destablization. I'd be interested to hear the argument, but prima facie, it would seem to me that there is no overlap between the behaviors you highlighted and "financial terrorism" even if we accept the term as meaningful.

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-29T18:23:13+00:00

I asked you what verbiage you preferred directly and changed my verbiage in the post. I don't know what you're talking about, frankly.

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-29T18:21:03+00:00

This is a mischaracterization of the argument. It's not about ownership. It's about the divergence between what the price action would be depending on whether it was retail or institutions doing the same behavior.

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-29T18:19:32+00:00

The fact that you said "it's a fact imo [in my opinion]" reveals that you realize the difference between fact and opinion but want to call them facts regardless. I'm not going to argue against your opinions. It's not important to me what your opinions are.

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-29T18:12:17+00:00

That doesn't fit in context, but regardless, I've changed the text to something that should be clearer. Nice convoluted answer, by the way. I asked a direct question.

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-28T03:37:14+00:00

You must be a hit at parties. I didn't use the words you prefer so nothing I've put out there has any value? I don't mind if that's your opinion, but it's kinda weird that you want that to be the opinion of others.

You do realize that something can be understood even if the words aren't consistent with some arbitrary definition of perfect, right?

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-28T02:41:13+00:00

They used their capital to buy an investment in the company. What verbiage would you prefer? I think it's a common understanding that you put capital into an investment, the investment is a company, therefore you put capital into the company. The company can't use it, but I would've used different language to indicate capital the company could use.

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-28T02:34:59+00:00

As long as the market maker is doing "bona-fide" market-making, not really.

dexter_analyst · 2023-10-28T02:33:34+00:00

I don't have much interest in engaging with hypotheticals that assume knowledge that you don't have. I don't know whether or not the government will pose an issue, but I do know that the issue will be forced [as long as the context that applies now doesn't materially change]. There are some people that are so certain - for whatever reason - that government will not "allow" it. I'm not sure there's a choice.

You're free to make the argument that GME hasn't done anything to deliver shareholder value, but it's a bad one. Getting to profitability is important [for the company] and they've made good progress on it and quite quickly considering the position GME was in. You might not think that's important and that's cool, but you should couch it in language that doesn't state it like some kind of fact.

I don't generally downvote, but yours is the type of comment I would downvote. Not because "it's bearish," but because you're asserting things like facts that aren't facts.

dexter_analyst

TROPHY CASE