hard&heavy puts was meant (and taken I understand) as hard&heavy irony. You can read me, when I come out with any hard facts, as a general-purpose&bandwidth resonator - I'm just reflecting the present mood in my environment...
which is NOT US and US market - I'm positioned in the European penalty box, which makes a rather neat distinction on one side, on the other side locks me out of a lot of (good and bad) jokes in this thread.
I just have two hard and heavy puts - they amount to 7% of the portfolio - and they are both kinky:
$/Y: I had and still have a gut feeling Nihon Inc will (at least the sound ones) HAVE to keep exporting
DAX: I think we are short term in a bear rally
But, I guess Mrs Market (its a she) will come and teach me mores again.
No, Im not using puts as a safeguard. They are (or were...) meant to be investments. Re using puts to insure the portfolio. Well, nothing against it, but my experience is 1-to-1 with yours. This idea is usually one of the BS items you hear from guys at the investment seminars and they got it from their bosses who manage anything upward 10^6 or 7. In this case a percent here and there is huge, and selling 3% of their portfolio would not only cause a market upheaval, no siree, they would get nasty calls from their golf buddies. Striking their appointments. Etc.
In our case (thank God,) we're small and at least not the size of THOSE dynos. If you feel the market will tank, then SELL! Why insure, take the "In God we trust" thingies instead... It's like a Soling (Steve, you reading?) vs a tanker. BTW, out there in Alaska, remember, the skipper was drunk and the helmsman, well, he was standing but thats about it.
Re Resident Analytical Poet Laureate... sigh ... we always show up with feathers stuck up our <blank> which we would LIKE to be seen with. Then off-stage, it's 8-to-5 (or actually/normally 8-to-6) back again. It's strange. Very human (g).
dj
PS: This was just meant to reinforce my right to ... insert, is that the expression?... any feathers I feel like (g).
PPS: using 1% to 2% of total investment insures you (guess what) for 1 or 2%. Big Q: how much is enough? |
