Sunday, February 03, 2008

The jokes are on us

I frequently see folks talk about TV personalities mention that they are long xyz stock or own ABC options, as part of a fair disclosure.

Lets take a deeper look at the so called fair disclosure.

If the screen caption flashes that he owns ABC options, what does that mean?
Does it mean he is long calls? (bullish)
Does it mean he is long puts? (bearish)
Does it mean he is long both? (neutual, expeting big move either way or long IV)
Does it mean he is short options naked? (calls or puts, cant tell the sentiment)
Does it mean he owns options of some kind, can be long or short, against the underlying? (could be any kind of sentiment)
Do you see the endless possibilities of that singular disclosure now?

Alright, lets pick on the caption flashing he owns xyz stock presumably long:
Does it mean he owns no options against the stock? Bec. if he is also long puts then he synthetically have long calls on xyz, not long stock. Alright, maybe he has collared the stock with long puts and short calls against the stock, now he is not as bullish as the caption says, is it.
Or,
Maybe the long xyz is part of a pairs trade against another correlated stock, or another basket of stocks. Or do they short a sector ETF hedging against the long stock? Do they also have index futures hedging against the pairs basket? Is the long stock simply a tiny position of a larger agenda, with a complete different goal than relying on xyz to go "up" to profit?




We don't know do we.......

The jokes are on us retail viewers, try not to get sucked into it.