Must be Time to Short the Market

[rabot10]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

Jim I am doing well thank you, I know Ty Andros and would like to know what U all think of his reports

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

Jim I am doing well thank you, I know Ty Andros and would like to know what U all think of his reports

I encounter Andros' remarks on safehaven.com, I guess it it, and if I open the article, and if it is long, with rare exceptions I don't read it. I don't know Andros from Adam's cat, and though he likely is a genius, I won't read his long articles unless the title is persuasive or unless someone I sort of know, like someone who is a frequent contributor on iTulip, points out something is exceptional about the article, then I may read it.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

Nowhere have I encountered a community of more highly educated, more thoroughly astute and inquiring people than here on the I-Tulip forums. You break new ground everywhere in your inquiries.

It's therefore stupefying to me, to observe the sheer determination with which the majority here choose to not only disbelieve, but to pointedly and artfully ignore the signals coming from the markets, about a very, very large story afoot:

Lukester, where I grew up it was not infrequently said, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

That is rather much a fact as I see it, and it is the same with investment advice, or arguments about how macro-economic issues will play out.

You seem to be particular bothered by your perception that "iTulip community" rejects how you believe things will play out with oil. First, I don't think one can collectively characterize iTulip contributors as seeing the issue of oil in one specific way. Second, if I am wrong, and a poll were to show a majority thinks one way or another, it doesn't resolve the issue. Shit, people are wrong all the time, but here on iTulip I expect at least 50% of what is written will pan out to be the near truth as time unwinds, the only problem is I don't know which 50% it will be.

This in not meant to discourage your campaign to put forth what you believe is correct.

[Guest]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

Hi Jim - You wrote: << You seem to be particular bothered by your perception that "iTulip community" rejects how you believe things will play out with oil. First, I don't think one can collectively characterize iTulip contributors as seeing the issue of oil in one specific way. >>

You seem to me a real gentleman Jim, and I greatly appreciate your moderate style. I hope you can discern continuing respect in me as I reply to you further.

A few people on this website made some remarks about 'oil depletion' - and they were replied to in no uncertain terms, by a very few other contributors. That much was clear.

What was glaring in it's omission instead was a very large percentage - you might say 98% + of posters on this website, who post regularly each week and are quite engaged on every other topic - hanging back and not offering any opinion. Odd, don't you think?

Does that not seem peculiar to you? 98%+ of a normally very outspoken community, becomes utterly silent on this one topic?

The thought crossed my mind that perhaps a great number of people here are afraid to be taken for fools if they should acknowledged any scrap of agreement with those foolish and agitated people over at the ASPO and OIL DRUM websites? How many people had a thought about it but then thought, "nah, I'll pass offering opinion on this one".

This community is supposedly all about delving down into the biggest stories of the day. Look how coy and bashful everyone suddenly gets on this one topic - either it's out of peer pressure to a conformist point of view, or it's (gasp!) conformity of thinking itself within this community, or there is indeed merely a lot of uncertainty about what's true and what isn't on this topic, and no-one really knows what to think about it.

So here you have a community with an obvious inclination to analyze things from an economic point of view on most issues and a very lively engagement to do that. Many big stories there daily and weekly, no question.

To regard this one issue as 'boring', or merely 'unremarkable', is a very peculiar disengagement from a topic central to world events - it's doubly peculiar within a community who's entire conversation and theme is about world events.

There has been a deafening silence on the topic, heard from otherwise very engaged contributors who post all kinds of other commentary here. So we must conclude A) it's considered 'un-remarkable', B) 'boring', C) 'questionable'. Shall we add D) 'irrelevant'?

Seems to me, by yawning at this topic, that all the 'no comment' people here (98%) are indulging the very conformity of thinking they so relish debunking in the hapless general public much of the rest of the time.

I-Tulipers who consider there is no 'real issue' with oil depletion in late 2007 should understand this however - they are very much in sync with the general public's view today on this topic - (potentially) sound asleep. Doesn't it make you feel a tad uncomfortable that I-Tulip's great majority see 100% eye to eye on this issue with the hapless public so often dissected on these pages?

As Barberic has pointed out and seems to agree to in a post today, the vast majority of the general pubic are totally unaware of an issue that's potentially going to make central bank money debasement and even $400 trillion of derivatives seem a relatively manageable problem in comparison - in less than half a decade! Hello?

I continue to marvel ... It's a bit reminiscent of a preparedness society meeting regularly and passionately arguing about preparedness while they sit in a burning house.

[zoog]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

...possibly a majority of readers of these pages are too sophisticated to place much faith in a five year bet on Gold today with more than token amounts of their investable assets.

Just for the record, I'll say that I'm not too sophisticated. While I admire the market knowledge and analysis of many people here, I do not feel like I have the prowess to play this rigged game to advantage. The gold-and-hold approach seems like a reasonably safe, reasonably simple vehicle for those of us who lack either the skills or the dedication to follow every tiny detail of the ever-changing market scene, ready to drop an investment or snap up another at a moment's notice. While I hope to profit from my investments over the coming years, I will be happy, or at least relieved, if I merely succeed in not losing money.

[jk]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

lukester, i have refrained from commenting on the peak oil issue because i am loathe to get involved in the religious fervor of both its proponents and its critics. [i find the posts of some of your critics repulsive in their intensity, and i have no interest in flame wars.] we live on a finite globe, and so every resource is finite. yet i'm aware of that famous bet between simon and ehrlich, and the way technology changes use. on the whole i think oil is going to get more expensive, and that this process may at times be turbulent. i think changes in oil prices and consumption patterns may have big effects on social geography, but i'm skeptical of kunstleresque apocalypses.

but what's more boring than an "on-the-one-hand-and-on-the-other-hand" post like this one. so i haven't bothered til you asked for more feedback on the issue.

[rabot10]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

Jim I am alive thank you. I know Ty Andrews what do U all think of his take on the market?

[Anon21456]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

I have given up on my short positions and am going long - sure sign the markets going down.

That was a perfect call
Today what's your opinion on the dollar or crude oil ? ;)

[touchring]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

I have given up on my short positions and am going long - sure sign the markets going down.

China’s Rate Hike: There Goes Global Liquidity


http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowat...bal-liquidity/


Still early? As there is usually a few months time lag before wall street reacts to Chinese rate hikes.

[icm63]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

NOT YET.. NO SELLING BY THE BIG BOYS YET
...
SPYShortNOTYet001.jpg
NOTE: Website source, will be launched this year...

[Chris]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

My last short was here...

ouch!

Didn't your mama ever tell you not to play with algos?

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

A good portion of my gains for the first 6 months of '09 were lost when I starting shorting in June.

The screaming short opportunities of late 2007 and '08 are gone. Trying to time the market to capture some short opportunities on brief dips is too difficult in a market that is back in an uptrend.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

A good portion of my gains for the first 6 months of '09 were lost when I starting shorting in June.

The screaming short opportunities of late 2007 and '08 are gone.

The time to short will be the day that a sufficient number of bears give up trying to short.

When markets start to decline, if there are many investors short the market, they start closing their shorts to cash in on their profitable trades. This firms the market up again. When markets rise, if there are many short the market, they have to cover their shorts (at a loss), boosting the rise further.

In both cases, the outstanding shorts are those who have already sold and now must buy back at some time, typically fairly soon. This reservoir of short sellers helps keep markets up.

When this bearish reservoir is sufficiently drained, the market can collapse more easily.

See for example the ratio of open interest in puts (bearish) to calls (bullish), such as this from http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/st...spx?ticker=spx



If this ratio had declined further in December, that could have opened the door to a major market decline now. But the bears bellied back up to the bar in December, perhaps leading to a weaker Santa Claus rally when they sold short (or purchased equivalent put options), but now providing renewed market support as they provide that reservoir of pretty much guaranteed buyers sometime soon.

[aaron]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

Funny, I just wrote off my short positions a couple of days ago too. The puts I bought are down 99.1%. Over the past 10 years I have DEFINITELY been able to time lows and highs in the market. Even funnier, my most profitable trade over the past decade was a forex trade in which I pressed the sell button instead of the buy button by accident.

Anyway, the market should start going down now. If my puts were worth more than the commission to sell them, I would have done so on Thursday.
Hence, a market top.

[touchring]

Re: Must be Time to Short the Market

A good portion of my gains for the first 6 months of '09 were lost when I starting shorting in June.

Based on whose call?