Comments on: Citi’s New Financial Product: Reality Distortion Field

By: Anal_yst

Anal_yst — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:01:16 +0000

@ 21

I’m glad I’m not the only (former) science geek hahaha

By: dumpy12

dumpy12 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:19:41 +0000

there is a Quantum Capital. his top holding is MMM. or at least the sum of the wavesigns that appear on a macro level to be MMM.

By: Anal_yst

Anal_yst — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:55:44 +0000

@ Coop

Does James Simons know about this? Or David Shaw for that matter? Is there a Quantum Capital LP out there, if not I smell a fantastic marketing opportunity…

By: Coop

Coop — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:28:04 +0000

Analyst – thats called a “quantum hedge”
I pioneered it back in the 80’s

By: born to lose

born to lose — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:47:19 +0000

What? Oh…you must be talking about a derivative strategy.

I just meant to strangle a cat.

By: Anal_yst

Anal_yst — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:24:23 +0000

Born to lose,

I’ve gotta brush up on my quantum physics, but couldn’t a straddle be much more then a vol play, as the underlying asset could both increase, and decrease simultaneously?

By: born to lose

born to lose — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:18:40 +0000

Anal_yst,

I think we’d do better to Strangle Schrodinger’s Cat. That way, we could know it’s strike, unfortunately we’d likely get the expiry wrong.

By: RichL

RichL — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:33:16 +0000

It all makes imperfect sense. The market moves in ways that are least convenient to the largest number of participants.

I learned this week that Wachovia had unprecedentedly bad results in 1Q with their Pick-a-pay mortgages, and that MGIC felt they needed less reserves. SLM reaffirmed estimates, while saying that their funding costs were problematic.

There is some possibility that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear in conference calls

By: Anal_yst

Anal_yst — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:32:10 +0000

Debacle, lets extrapolate an even more important macro strategy here from recent events, the emergence of Quantum and Particle Physics-based strategies. Long Schrodinger, straddle on his Cat.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:31:13 +0000

@Coop
That’s the problem. If fund managers would be randomly selling/buying monekeys, they could beat the indicies.

By: Sunset Shazz

Sunset Shazz — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:30:08 +0000

Quotes entirely relevant to investing:

“If we don’t sell, it is only a paper loss.”

- Qiu Jiaxin, 27-year-old Chinese School administrator, sitting on a 65% loss on his Western Mining Co. position (WSJ 4/19/08).

By: Coop

Coop — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:02:02 +0000

My finance job keeps me too busy to follow the markets, so could someone please tell me what these rallies are all about? I mean I am being serious, why do things like the pop in citi keep happening? There has to be at least some rationale behind it, its not like EVERY person on Wall street is a dumb monkey just randomly buying and selling? any help?

By: Conor Neu

Conor Neu — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:56:55 +0000

Do not forget about the great news to the economy. 9,000 more unemployed surely means that the market should rally 2%.

By: T Double

T Double — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:22:22 +0000

This clearly the “Costanza Effect” of the drop earlier this year.
“If all of my trades have been incorrect, then buying an opposite stock, say ones with huge losses, with losses even greater than anyone expected, would have to be correct.”

By: Size

Size — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:27:59 +0000

T-will, I’m glad I’m not alone. You expressed my thoughts exactly.

Did it become illegal to not buy shares over there or something?

No. Not yet. But Barney Frank and the other congressional geniuses are working on it. This is the anticipation rally.

By: Mr Juggles

Mr Juggles — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:04:43 +0000

Maybe I’m an idiot but I non-sequiturred on the Nazi Germany analogy. Perhaps spell it out in a language like English, the plain kind.

By: Robin Bruce

Robin Bruce — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:27:17 +0000

Hogging the comments board now, but I need to share this thought with potentially sympathetic minds:

In 1945 Nazi Germany, do you think that the news of each massive advance eastward by the Allies and westward by the Soviets was reported positively? Surely it was an indication that the advances had gone as far as they could go, no?

By: HAM05

HAM05 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:23:05 +0000

@twill – interesting though bc i know im crazy and come here to bask in the knowledge that there are other crazies, like me, still left in the world. semantics i guess.

By: Robin Bruce

Robin Bruce — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:33:40 +0000

Did it become illegal to not buy shares over there or something?

By: NeuroAZ

NeuroAZ — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:31:00 +0000

No no… you’re crazy.

By: T-will

T-will — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:59:18 +0000

Sometimes I think I’m crazy, but then I come here and realize that there’s still a small group of sane people left in this world.

By: Juan

Juan — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:54:09 +0000

Wonder if the market will pause to enjoy the view as it rockets past the moon today…