<p>“For them,yes…for me, no way.”</p>
<p>Lol</p>
<p>This is not going to be the most positive opening ever.</p>
<p>I don’t see too any stocks up today.</p>
<p>Peet’s Coffee is pretty popular around here and I guess the company is going to be taken over at a nice premium.</p>
<p>Just as we got close to 13,000, time to revisit 12,000</p>
<p>Just bought in my short jul 29 puts in MSFT.</p>
<p>I am a little surprised MSFT dropped so much.</p>
<p>My short put position is very small and that looks like a good thing.</p>
<p>VIX is up size.</p>
<p>As already posted a few days ago, $SAPX a strong buy!!!</p>
<p>Last week, it could have been bought for 4 cents, even lower several weeks ago at 2 cents, now it is heading to 7 cents!!!</p>
<p>10 cents by the end of month!!</p>
<p>Interesting purchase of Canadian Shale/Sands producer:</p>
<p>[Cnooc</a> to Buy Nexen for $15.1 Billion - WSJ.com](<a href=“Cnooc to Buy Nexen for $15.1 Billion - WSJ”>Cnooc to Buy Nexen for $15.1 Billion - WSJ)</p>
<p>They really want to transport it from Canada? They have been buying up stuff in Australia - maybe it’s not enough.</p>
<p>I wonder if the cnonc deal is going to go through. It seems like the initial reaction is positive.</p>
<p>I was surprised by how much the markets rallied off their lows today. Doesn’t mean anything other than I was surprised. Even with the big drop and the rally back, I thought today was boring.</p>
<p>My partner was mildly excited today. Look xxx was trading 34, now it is 36. Goog and Aapl were down double digits, now look at the stocks. I looked at them and said, “So?”.</p>
<p>I really should be doing something else. :)</p>
<p>Is liquidity worth the ancillary costs?</p>
<p>[Fed’s</a> Raskin: No government backstop for banks that do prop trading - Yahoo!
Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-raskin-no-government-backstop-230244555.html;_ylt=AmCQ7AmYjiT3sEYWmHkkOTKiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTNya2hrYzlwBG1pdANGUCBUb3AgU3RvcnkgTGVmdARwa2cDM2JmODlhN2YtNTE0Ni0zN2U0LWIzNzgtNTMyYzYwN2M3NWZlBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyA2IzNjEyNjYwLWQ1MWEtMTFlMS1hM2ZkLTQ5MmYxYzQyZGEzMg--;_ylg=X3oDMTFpNzk0NjhtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3]Fed’s”>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-raskin-no-government-backstop-230244555.html;_ylt=AmCQ7AmYjiT3sEYWmHkkOTKiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTNya2hrYzlwBG1pdANGUCBUb3AgU3RvcnkgTGVmdARwa2cDM2JmODlhN2YtNTE0Ni0zN2U0LWIzNzgtNTMyYzYwN2M3NWZlBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyA2IzNjEyNjYwLWQ1MWEtMTFlMS1hM2ZkLTQ5MmYxYzQyZGEzMg--;_ylg=X3oDMTFpNzk0NjhtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3)</p>
<p>"“I view proprietary trading as an activity of low or no real economic value that should not be part of any banking model that has an implicit government backstop,” Raskin told students at the Graduate School of Banking at Colorado in remarks made available in Washington.
“Much of this so-called liquidity, especially in opaque over-the-counter markets, is potentially illusory and destabilizing, especially during adverse market conditions, which does not benefit the public.”</p>
<p>^ Totally agree. “proprietary trading as an activity of low or no real economic value”</p>
<p>GOOG was up today.</p>
<p>All eyes on AAPL tomorrow. If they tank, buy. The tankage will most likely be due to lower iPhone 4 sales as customers are waiting for the iPhone 5. iPhone 5 sales are going to be massive. But in Q4.</p>
<p>“The so-called Volcker Rule, named after former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, limits the ability of banks to make speculative bets with their own funds. But regulators are expected to craft some exemptions to the measure, which is one component of the broader Dodd-Frank financial reform package.”</p>
<p>I think it is going to be very hard to distinguish between proprietary trading and hedging customer orders. Watching Dimon testify just reinforces this.</p>
<p>"“Liquidity is not an inherent public benefit that justifies the expenditure of significant compliance, oversight, examination and enforcement costs.”</p>
<p>I think this is an interesting statement. I may have disagreed with this once, but if there was less liquidity, traders and investors would have to be more careful. Trade less, trade smaller, take less risk. Watching the occssional crashes in the markets, this might lead to less systemic risk.
Because there is a tendency to socialize the losses, maybe less risk would be a good thing.</p>
<p>I know Goog was up today. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am thinking of putting in a limit order at $450 in case there is a flash crash in AAPL. What do you think? Any chance of that?</p>
<p>Go for it. I can’t remember the rules for after hours trading. I can’t remember if the stock can drop that much without a trading halt.</p>
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<p>There’s less liquidity in the housing market. I think that most people would be happier if there were more liquidity in the housing market.</p>
<p>I picked up some GOOG just before earnings. A coworker walked into my office with a Nexus tablet and I played around with it for a while. I was very, very impressed.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have the luxury feel of an Apple product but it does a lot of things well and it’s quite inexpensive. Google certainly isn’t making any or much money on these - I assume that they make their money on getting ads to you and tracking you.</p>
<p>“There’s less liquidity in the housing market. I think that most people would be happier if there were more liquidity in the housing market.”</p>
<p>I think people would be happier if there was more liquidity in the housing market.</p>
<p>My guess on the downside risk is about $60. I’d say that there’s no harm putting in a bid at $450.</p>
<p>Speaking of Apple, I read an interesting article on AAPL’s foreign profits and their reserves for paying US taxes. They have $74 billion in overseas profits and about $10 billion reserved for taxes. Experts say that they actually don’t need to record the reserve for taxes - they could bring them into the income statement right now using legal tax accounting tricks. So they could legally add about $10 billion to their bottom line right now. They don’t want to do that, though, because of how it would appear - yes, everybody else already does this but Apple gets singled out because they are big. Apple is waiting for some kind of tax compromise to be worked out so that they’d have cover to bring in the profits.</p>
<p>The other thing of note is the $74 billion in foreign profits.</p>
<p>That is a crapload of profits based off an even bigger crapload of sales. Their cash hoard is reportedly around $100 billion. Is the US no longer their primary market? It is really hard to think about profits and cash at those levels - it boggles the mind compared to other companies that I typically own.</p>
<p>I wonder if cnooc wants to buy PBA, PGH, ECA, APA, APC, etc.</p>
<p>So BCEagle91, you are back in the markets?</p>
<p>Feeling better about things?</p>
<p>There is no way that aapl is going through 520 tomorrow. Fear of missed sales for the iphone are to some extent already priced into the stock. I sold 7/27 540 puts last week (and hope that I get assigned) and own the 620/635 8/18 call spread.</p>
<p>"$450 in case there is a flash crash in AAPL. What do you think? Any chance of that? "
Nooooooooooooooo. no chance.
we hear the same thing every year- " Iphone unit sales will be lower as people are waiting for the “new” Iphone to come out" ,yada yada. But the stock never takes a BIG hit . wont this time either.</p>