Friday, October 12, 2007

An Odd Thought

I was writing an e-mail to an on line friend and something occurred to me. Yes, that tinfoil is perforated, and I'll ascribe odd thoughts to that occurrence.

Oftentimes Sep/Oct are met with some chagrin because of the tendency of the market to swan dive. The media (including many respected technicians) accounts were replete with this "fact".

Well, what have you heard about the Fall "fall"? Not much.

I find that odd.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A bit off-topic - I just wanted to say personal thanks for SEED hint. After reading your blog and doing some DD I was on alert and got in at the near bottom. I exited SEED completely for a clean double. I may get back in if it drops below 9 (after all nothing really changed).
For now I've routed all the gain proceeds into April 08 RTH puts. Need some hedge for the peace of mind.

On a different subject (since you mentioned that you had a corporate finance experience). Is there a good introductory reading on corporate finance. At a minimum I want to be able to read and understand SEC filings. Ideally I want to now how to identify presence of off-balance sheet transactions and use of SPVs. My main background is in math and engineering plus some self-educated economics 101 so I'd prefer something moderately serious. Thanks in advance.

Leisa♠ said...

O_R: Congratulations on SEED. I have to say that it was such a spectacular day. Much better than watching one's holding drop like a rock in a chasm!

I hope that you have better luck on RTH than I. RTH is amazingly resilient. If HD and WMT (two big weightings) have seen their worst days, then that might be a tough one. I'll never own puts on that one again--better to short the individual retailer IMV.

I'm not sure what to tell you about an introduction to corporate finance. I'd pose this question at Bill's website--you may get a good response of what others are used. I don't wish to seem unhelpful, but I have no other suggestion.

Anonymous said...

rzr- my brother, a lawyer who ended up in investment banking, used an old edition of Brealey and Myers' Principles of Corporate Finance to start educating himself on the subject...good intro to NPV; risk ("beta"); and Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT)...

2nd_ave

Anonymous said...

Its Fall until December 20. Two more months.

russell1200 said...

There are a number of good books on corporate finance. I disagree with much of modern finance theory (influence from Taleb probably), but you have to know how others value companies because you have to sell your stuff back to somebody.

Charles w. Mulford and Eugene E. Comiskey have written a number of good books on financial skulduggery. However, the easiest way to find the shenanigans is to read the footnotes. I swear, I mean really really swear that the analysts who review these companies can't be reading the full filings.

They aren't talking about October surprises, because there are too many obvious threatening issues that won't be a surprise. Today's WSJ front page on the Citibank Lead effort to get a bank bailout (sorry - liquidity) fund going is a prime example.