2007-09-03

Another entertaining conspiracy

From the department of the-mind-is-a-terrible-thing-to-taste:
THEY DID IT AGAIN. . . . ANOTHER HUGE SALE OF OPTION CONTRACTS ON $4.5 BILLION WORTH OF STOCKS BETTING THE MARKET WILL LOSE 30%-50% OF ITS VALUE IN FOUR WEEKS! THIS SALE ON THE SPY.X AND THE ONE FROM YESTERDAY ON THE SPY.Y (MENTIONED TWO STORIES BELOW) ARE BEING REFERRED-TO BY FOLKS IN THE MARKET AS "BIN LADEN TRADES" BECAUSE ONLY AN ACT OF TERRORISM AKIN TO 9-11 (WITHIN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS) COULD MAKE THESE OPTIONS VALUABLE.

There are 65,000 contracts @ $750.00 for the SPX 700 calls for open interest. That controls 6.5 million shares at $750 = $4.5 Billion. Not a single trade. But quite a bit of $$ on a contract that is 700 points away from current value. No one would buy that deep "in the money" calls. No reason to. So if they were sold looks like someone betting on massive dislocation. Lots of very strange option activity that I haven't seen before.

The entity or individual offering these sales can only make money if the market drops 30%-50% within the next four weeks. If the market does not drop, the entity or invidual involved stands to lose over $1 billion just for engaging in these contracts! Clearly, someone knows something big is going to happen BEFORE the options expire on Sept. 21.

THEORIES:

The following theories are being discussed widely within the stock and options markets today regarding the enormous and very unusual activity reported above and two stories below. Those theories are:
1) A massive terrorist attack is going to take place before Sept. 21 to tank the markets, OR;
2) China, reeling over losing $10 Billion in bad loans to the sub-prime mortgage collapse presently taking place, is going to dump US currency and tank all of Capitalism with a Communist fianncial
revolution.

Either scenario is bad and the clock is ticking. The drop-dead date of these contracts is September 21. Whatever is going to happen MUST take place between now and then or the folks involved in these contracts will lose over $1 billion for having engaged in this activity.
If this report is true (and I doubt it since the person posting it did not give any links at all, even to non-credible sources, for his information) then I think that the two theories are incorrect because a) For the market to tank by 50% would require a massive terrorist attack many times the magnitude of 9/11, like a Nuke going off somewhere in the US. Market losses after 9/11 were never as severe as 50%. b) For China to "bet" money on the US stockmarket based on their plan to massively devalue the US Dollar would be like investing money in a company you're about to destroy.

1 comment:

42 said...

oh, the trades happened all right. you can see them on any quotation system that will show open interest on SPY and SPX options.

the truth of the matter is undoubtedly less hair-raising than the hysterics I've seen elsewhere. could be a bank or brokerage in trouble that needed to raise some cash fast. writing expensive calls is one way to do that.