Doom and Liars Poker

[lightng]

Oops, what Ive said has already been said. Sorry about the virtual trees wasted there!

[lightng]

There must be some long-term way of making money from shares going down though? Probably has "inverse" in the name somewhere.

Yeah - Options. If you think shares in a company are going down, you purchase "put" options which are the right to sell at a certain price and at a certain time. When the shares fall, you buy them at the low price and sell them at the price you have a right to sell at.

The opposite of this is a "call" option - the right to buy at a certain price at a certain time.

If all you know is that the share price will change, you can buy 50/50 call and put.

For most people its all just gambling though unless you've got a good portfolio or have got some insider info (and if you have then PM me ).

[DiscoStu]

There must be some long-term way of making money from shares going down though? Probably has "inverse" in the name somewhere.

Long-term spread bet?

[d000hg]

There must be some long-term way of making money from shares going down though? Probably has "inverse" in the name somewhere.

[tim123]

Eisman followed the trail of bad debt, shorting every company that was exposed, when the crisis broke in September this year he was short to the tune of $600million on everyone from Option One to Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Merill.

HTH

There's only one problem with this (claim).

When shorting stock you only have a very short time frame (days) to make your money before you have to supply the stock that you have shorted (usually at a loss).

You can't "short" over a five (or even one) year period so to make loads of money doing it you have to be exceptionally precise with your timing.

I don't believe anyone can plan on being that precise

tim

[Ravello]

Management Summary:

The author was paid a 6 figure salary to gamble with other people's money, recognised he didn't have a clue what he was doing, thought that he'd had a good 3 years and got out before it all went narks up. Wrote a book about it 20 years ago - Liars Poker.

20 years on his worst fears came to fruition, so he spoke to several people who had predicted this was going to happen, principally a guy called Steve Eisman. Eisman spent several years researching sub-prime debt and realising that the big boys were repackaging it, having it re-rated and selling it as triple-A rated (which allows pensions to buy in). Eisman spent some time finding the worst rated debt and shorting it - the best example being a Mexican strawberry picker earning $14,000 a year who barely spoke a word of English and was loaned every cent needed to buy a $720k house.

Eisman followed the trail of bad debt, shorting every company that was exposed, when the crisis broke in September this year he was short to the tune of $600million on everyone from Option One to Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Merill.

HTH

[Ravello]

Sounds like how I feel

[Spacecadet]

Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud.

Sounds like how I feel

[Pickle2]

Management summary please for a Daily Mail reader in Swindon. (9 fooking pages!)

Its all the fault of dark-faced immigrants for voting labour.

HTH

[DimPrawn]

Management summary please for a Daily Mail reader in Swindon. (9 fooking pages!)

[Pickle2]

I just spent 20 (of my client's) minutes reading an article by the guy who wrote liars poker. It explains a lot about how the whole current sub prime mess really got going and is very readable.

http://www.portfolio.com/news-market...-Boom?tid=true

I enjoyed it much, so thought I would share.