Sign of a financial Armageddon?

[famousdayandyear]

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Ominous stock trade suggests insider knowledge and warning
Sign of a financial Armageddon?

Author- Doug Hagmann (Bio and Archives)  Thursday, February 7, 2013


If you’re like me, you’re just a “regular” person whose lack of understanding of the stock market is enough to keep you away from it. For me, it’s a spectator sport that’s rigged at the highest levels in favor of the “initiated ones,”  or as Gerald Celente calls them, the “white shoe boys.” If you’re like me, you probably don’t have any insider channels of information that would permit you to make $100,000 in the short span of ten months from a single $1,000 investment in cattle futures, the way Hillary Rodham Clinton did in 1994. Okay, so take me to task because the stock and future markets are two separate trading venues, but you get the idea.

But just as you needn’t stick your hand in a blender to know it’s going to hurt and leave a mark, you don’t need to be a financial genius to know that certain market trades indicate an insider foreknowledge that something bad might be headed this way. One case in point is the odd put options on airline stocks just before the attacks on September 11, 2001. You know, the trades that according to the Keene Commission were merely coincidental and not out of the ordinary at all. A “put option,” by the way, is a “bet” made by someone that a particular stock or asset is going to lose value by a certain date.

Lest you still cling to that outlandish conspiracy nonsense and continue to feel that something is still amiss with the 9/11 put options, rest assured that the crack investigative husband and wife team known as “Snopes” has determined that you are in need of a cup of steeping hot passionflower tea and a strong pharmaceutical to pull you back into the reality of Oz. Their source, of course, is none other than the Keene Commission Report itself. Go figure.
An ominous contemporary warning

Something happened this week that brings back haunting memories of the 2001 put options of airline stocks, except this “bet” is against the entire U.S. economy. This week, an anonymous trader bought 100,000 put options on the ETF, which is an acronym for an exchange-traded fund. One commonly traded ETF is XLF, which, in the most unscientific and basic terms, is a group of funds that is like a barometer for the stock market.

Now, such trades involving ETF-XLF are common, except when the put options (bets that the value of an asset is going to go down) are so large and so significant that they scream of insider knowledge with big flashing lights and arrows. This is one of those. In this case, it is a bet against the stock market, although this is admittedly a rather oversimplified explanation - but you get the idea.

According to professionals who watch this activity for a living, normal single trades involve maybe 500 contracts at most. That’s why certain professionals took notice of an order this week of 100,000 put options, or 200 times the high trade volume of 500. It become even more curious when one considers that the trader is “betting” that the market will take a significant hit by the end of April. (The put options are dated for April 20 and 25, 2013, right around Hitler’s birthday, for those of you who follow things like that.)

At this point, I could mention that the VIX, or volatility index (a/k/a the fear index) is at historical lows and a bet like that recently made is actually contrary to the trend, thus making the “bet” even more curious, but I’ll spare you the market talk that I barely understand. I will, however, tell you this. I contacted a stock broker yesterday with over 25 years of experience in the market and asked about this put option. He said that he is aware of this activity, and told me that someone is risking a lot of money betting on a major stock market correction.

“A crash?” I asked him. “Explain it to me,” I pleaded.

“Shhhh, we don’t use that term,” was his reply, as he opened his desk drawer and grabbed a bottle of antacid tablets. “Someone seems to know something. I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” was his reply. “Well, maybe once. Remember those put options before 9/11?”
Should we be worried?

I asked this stockbroker if us normal people, those with our life savings stashed in a small coffee can in the back of our kitchen cupboard, should be concerned.

“No, of course not, not unless the trader is correct with the $11 million bet. That means that there would be crash… er, I mean a significant downward market correction. If that happens, then we’ll all be looking at huge losses that could nuke the market and have a domino effect across the financial board.”

“Of course we should be worried!” This could be the opening salvo of an economic collapse that everyone in the media and our elected officials are saying won’t happen.

Despite the market cheerleaders, we are to enter into the most serious financial crisis in U.S. history. If the trader is correct, the collateral damage will affect all of us.

Stay tuned

[alicewonders]

For quite some time, I have felt that the stock market was being manipulated and that it was going to eventually do something like this.  There is a chance that we might have our own "American Spring".

[mountaineer]

“Of course we should be worried!” This could be the opening salvo of an economic collapse that everyone in the media and our elected officials are saying won’t happen.

Despite the market cheerleaders, we are to enter into the most serious financial crisis in U.S. history. If the trader is correct, the collateral damage will affect all of us.

I always wonder what the heck Joe Six-Pack is supposed to do about it. Cash out the retirement fund and stuff paper money under the mattress? Sell all our stocks and get socked by capital gains tax?  Or just  ?

[alicewonders]

I always wonder what the heck Joe Six-Pack is supposed to do about it. Cash out the retirement fund and stuff paper money under the mattress? Sell all our stocks and get socked by capital gains tax?  Or just  ?

Joe Six-Pack has already been screwed, he just doesn't know it yet.  Right now, I'm investing in stocking up food, water, ammo and making myself more self-sufficient.  We just need to buffer ourselves for the coming hurt the best we can, it's still going to hurt real bad - but at least we won't be blindsided by it like Obama's peeps will be.  They're the ones that are going to take it hard, and they'll be taking it out on all of us.  Just get ready the best you can.

[Lipstick on a Hillary]

There is another article from Canada Free Press featured at lucianne.com this morning.  A "DHS Insider" interview pretty much predicting a coming apocalypse that's been planned since the 1990's, courtesy of Obama/Jarrett.

I have to wonder if Obama and Co. aren't putting this wacky stuff out there to stir up the masses so they can quietly continue working under the radar in a much quieter manner. 

[Lipstick on a Hillary]

I always wonder what the heck Joe Six-Pack is supposed to do about it. Cash out the retirement fund and stuff paper money under the mattress? Sell all our stocks and get socked by capital gains tax?  Or just  ?

Or gold bars?

[massadvj]

Or gold bars?

Precious metals may or may not help.  It depends on how they deal with it.  If they attempt to fix the problem by continuing to print money, then certainly gold and silver will go up in value.  But if they decide to bite the bullet like Volker did in the 1970's then interest rates go way up and everything -- stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, silver -- goes down (at least for a while) as the value of the dollar goes up.

The smart move is to diversify.  Own a little of everything: real estate, stocks, bonds, precious metals, some savings in a safe foreign bank, and even art and antiques.  That way you will be immune from the effects of central decision-making.

If you don't own any assets and you think they may just decide to bite the bullet, then it might be smart to borrow as much money as you can at these artificially low rates and then invest in a basket of investments similar to those I enumerated above.  But that is highly speculative.  Bernanke has shown no inclination to reel back the money supply, and every inclination to just continue printing.

[alicewonders]

There is another article from Canada Free Press featured at lucianne.com this morning.  A "DHS Insider" interview pretty much predicting a coming apocalypse that's been planned since the 1990's, courtesy of Obama/Jarrett.

I have to wonder if Obama and Co. aren't putting this wacky stuff out there to stir up the masses so they can quietly continue working under the radar in a much quieter manner.

Well, as we saw during the last election - all kinds of misinformation is being constantly foisted on us.  We truly can't believe ANYTHING anymore.  We've come to a point in history where we have to rely on our guts, because we know that what is being fed to us is mostly likely a lie.

[240B]

My understanding is that the stock markets have been artificially propped up by simulus cash for the last four years. What this has done is it has taken away the natural ebb and flow of the markets. Markets tend to self-correct. When this economic correction cycle is stymied by printing money and throwing it at the markets, it creates a dam-like situation. When econmics and math is replaced by politics, the markets become unpredictable because suddenly the normal rules no longer apply, and nobody knows what the new government 'investing' rules are or what they are going to do from one day to the next. Government interference and manipulation doesn't 'fix' the downturns, it postpones and interferes with them and causes uncertainty.

Government does not have the same outlook and priorities as investors. And, since government money is either taken or printed, they do not worry about profit and loss. After all, its not their money. It is not money that they worked for and made, in the traditional sense. Government money is a kind of artificial money. It is like it is not even a real thing to them. So, they are willing to do anything with it. They give it away to their friends and all over the world. They spend it on wild lavish parties and luxurious vactions. They give themselves 'crazy' salaries and benefits. And they invest in industries which have no economic viability, while tearing down through regulation traditional companies which have been profitable for over a hundred years. A wildcard element like this in the markets really mucks everything up. In the effort to create 'stability', the government has actually undermined the markets by injecting an artificial, unpredictable, factor into the equation.

Furthermore, obviously, printing money devalues the dollar. So, you may have a screaming market topping 14,000 but it does not matter because the market is being valued in worthless newly printed Obama-bucks. And, the increases in capital gains taxes, skew the investment profitability calculation. A screaming market is worthless if the government is just going to confiscate the profits. You have to ask yourself, is this investment worth the risk, or should I just spend the money now?

So, you have a market which is volitile and manipulated by the government, which is being valued in a currency which is volitile and manipulated by the government, and more is printed every day. All market forces and economic theory is then out of the markets, and everyone is left to wonder what the crazy government is going to do next. Ergo, you have dependency on and linkage to the government for stock evaluations which used to be a purely market driven calculation. So now, when the government goes south, everything goes south, since the government has inserted itself into every crack and crevice of all the functioning markets.

And that's how it goes. Leftists just cannot leave anything alone. They saw a functioning equities market and they had to control it, for no reason, just because it is there. They saw functioning coporate and energy industries and they had to contorl it. They saw a thriving small business market and they had to control it. They saw private ownership of land, property, and estates, and they had to control it. The only way the government increases their relevance and authority is through regulation and control. At this point, they are totally out of control. They see a thriving functioning society and they must control it. Now, they want to control what you eat, what you drink, what you say, and what you think. However, in their attempts to control, they ultimately wind up destroying the very thing they covet.

And Lennie continues to pet the dead mouse.

[mountaineer]

Joe Six-Pack has already been screwed, he just doesn't know it yet.  Right now, I'm investing in stocking up food, water, ammo and making myself more self-sufficient. ...Just get ready the best you can.

Yeah, I'm trying to do that, too. Several hundred rounds for each of our guns, canned goods, toilet paper, bottled water. Good grief. You'd never know this was America, would you?

[Oceander]

My understanding is that the stock markets have been artificially propped up by simulus cash for the last four years. What this has done is it has taken away the natural ebb and flow of the markets. Markets tend to self-correct. When this economic correction cycle is stymied by printing money and throwing it at the markets, it creates a dam-like situation. When econmics and math is replaced by politics, the markets become unpredictable because suddenly the normal rules no longer apply, and nobody knows what the new government 'investing' rules are or what they are going to do from one day to the next. Government interference and manipulation doesn't 'fix' the downturns, it postpones and interferes with them and causes uncertainty.

Government does not have the same outlook and priorities as investors. And, since government money is either taken or printed, they do not worry about profit and loss. After all, its not their money. It is not money that they worked for and made, in the traditional sense. Government money is a kind of artificial money. It is like it is not even a real thing to them. So, they are willing to do anything with it. They give it away to their friends and all over the world. They spend it on wild lavish parties and luxurious vactions. They give themselves 'crazy' salaries and benefits. And they invest in industries which have no economic viability, while tearing down through regulation traditional companies which have been profitable for over a hundred years. A wildcard element like this in the markets really mucks everything up. In the effort to create 'stability', the government has actually undermined the markets by injecting an artificial, unpredictable, factor into the equation.

Furthermore, obviously, printing money devalues the dollar. So, you may have a screaming market topping 14,000 but it does not matter because the market is being valued in worthless newly printed Obama-bucks. And, the increases in capital gains taxes, skew the investment profitability calculation. A screaming market is worthless if the government is just going to confiscate the profits. You have to ask yourself, is this investment worth the risk, or should I just spend the money now?

So, you have a market which is volitile and manipulated by the government, which is being valued in a currency which is volitile and manipulated by the government, and more is printed every day. All market forces and economic theory is then out of the markets, and everyone is left to wonder what the crazy government is going to do next. Ergo, you have dependency on and linkage to the government for stock evaluations which used to be a purely market driven calculation. So now, when the government goes south, everything goes south, since the government has inserted itself into every crack and crevice of all the functioning markets.

And that's how it goes. Leftists just cannot leave anything alone. They saw a functioning equities market and they had to control it, for no reason, just because it is there. They saw functioning coporate and energy industries and they had to contorl it. They saw a thriving small business market and they had to control it. They saw private ownership of land, property, and estates, and they had to control it. The only way the government increases their relevance and authority is through regulation and control. At this point, they are totally out of control. They see a thriving functioning society and they must control it. Now, they want to control what you eat, what you drink, what you say, and what you think. However, in their attempts to control, they ultimately wind up destroying the very thing they covet.

And Lennie continues to pet the dead mouse.

Bingo!  I'd give you a cigar, but they're too da*ned expensive now.