<p>Thanks…:)</p>
<p>I’m not certain if this is the same thing or not but I had sold a call on a stock that I own, everyday near the end of the day, somebody would put in a ridiculous ask price that was going up each day, even though the stock was dropping. The bid was .05 which was where it was suppose to be and the ask was 4.90. My account kept showing a huge debit.</p>
<p>Yes, that is a diff.</p>
<p>So, imagine if you had 20,000 contracts @ that diff.</p>
<p>Yeah…from what you are stating… it looks like your firm was marking the option on the offer…some firms…if you are short use the asking price to calculate the closing price.</p>
<p>You can see the process the firm uses if you use an online acct…which I am sure you use.</p>
<p>Doct…iF you have a good idea where that option should be priced.you could have placed an offer in at a lower price…a price that you know…you won’t be filled…if you offered it a buck…for example…your firm would use a buck for the close instead of 4.95 or whatever it was. </p>
<p>“So, imagine if you had 20,000 contracts @ that diff.”</p>
<p>Wow…that’s a lot. Lol</p>
<p>So poetgrl…you don’t have to answer this…is the firm your husband is with competing against hft firms?</p>
<p>This was schwab. I think etrade prices it based on the last sale. All I know was that I was expecting big up days and was down a significant amount. The strike price of the call was 35 with one week left and the stock was dropping to 33. Based on time, implied volatility etc, the value of the call was ~.10.</p>
<p>that HFT stuff is some fascinating technology, no?</p>
<p>“He had an enormous gun collection too.” ROTFL, dstark</p>
<p>(I am sorry it was so scary-- frown)</p>
<p>I work for a high tech semiconductor firm. Several of us have discussed HFT. I saw a paper written by electrical engineers who did a study of using articles in seeking alpha vs the wall street journal to trade. If my recollection serves me right, they were able to mine key phrases out of these and determined that using seeking alpha headlines would generate returns of 85% a year which was significantly higher than WSJ. I know a number of people who could easily generate the algorithms that are used in HFt.</p>
<p>Go for it, DocT. why not?</p>
<p>Performersmom…That’s ok…He is probably dead now.</p>
<p>Poetgrl…lol.</p>
<p>Well…I can see why you focus on liquidity…</p>
<p>I have had problems with positions a fraction of that size.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these people are young Ph.D’s who are still idealistic and not anxious to do this stuff - somewhat like I was as a youngster - money was not a concern of mine - now as someone who’s played the science game for >30 years, its a whole different story.</p>
<p>Doct…do you want to write these algos and work for a hft company?</p>
<p>I am not sure writing algos is enough. The execution speed is very important…</p>
<p>Edit:Ok…I thought you wanted to write the algos…</p>
<p>No - not me - my computer skills are insufficient. I have the math skills but I don’t have the energy - too old!</p>
<p>Yeah…what happened? Yesterday…I was 30. :)</p>
<p>dstark–</p>
<p>20,000 was a hypothetical. But, we were talking how you end up leveraged 40 to 1, too, which, :eek:</p>
<p>"dstark–</p>
<p>20,000 was a hypothetical. But, we were talking how you end up leveraged 40 to 1, too, which, "</p>
<p>Yeah I’m :eek: too.</p>
<p>Performersmom…by the way…it makes me happy that you were rotfl…at my gun collection comment…</p>
<p>One…because it was true and two…because I also meant it to be funny. :). At the time…not so funny. :)</p>
<p>Actually that sounds very alarming, not funny to me. Do you keep up with his rap sheet, has he shot anyone in the last 30 years?</p>
<p>“The 1% cant steal anymore money out of the 99% because we are sucked dry, now they need to steal from each other.”</p>
<p>I am really tired of listening to this sort of silliness. There’s plenty of people on this site that are in the beleaguered 1%, who haven’t stolen a cent or sucked anyone dry (except for dstark, perhaps).</p>
<p>busdriver: I don’t know if you have had time to read all the income inequality threads here recently. Maybe you have been too busy making a living? 
</p>
<p>Here is what I gathered from those threads. The bottom of the 1% is a very fluid group and many are falling out of that group these days. There is a huge income difference between the bottom of the 1% and the top of the 1%. </p>
<p>The tippy-top 1% get a good deal on taxes because most of their money isn’t “income” The tippy-top 1% is avoiding almost all estate taxes. These are new tax realities; it didn’t use to be this way a few decades back. There is a pdf that shows who the really tippy-toppers are and what they spent on lobbying to avoid estate taxes. </p>
<p>Definitions of 1% vary widely. People like to think they are in the top 1% and then they are distressed to think their taxes are going to be raised. They think the folks really getting a good deal are those making less than $35,000 annually, who are not paying their fair share of income taxes.</p>
<p>If you want to start a new thread I am happy to do all this again with you
My analysis may leave something to be desired. ;)</p>
<p>oh yeah - there seems to be a difference of opinion as to whether dstark is a blood-sucking-master-of-the-universe or a communist.</p>