Ted Cruz: The Final Straw That Broke The Diva's Back...

Seriously, I didn't even have that many puts and that much VIX, but my remaining TVIX shares are like a double-edged sword and today's -20.05% decline did not do my portfolio any favours.

I looked for high beta short term calls in an attempt to reverse the damage, but NFLX offered very little upside, so I straddled the SPXU + AMD and added some VXX puts.  Nothing seemed to help and I just finally threw in the towel towards the end of the day.

I guess my worst move of the day was buying BLK puts early in the day as I thought there was a possibility that things would break down some more on The Hill and cause some more collateral damage to the financial sector, but when Ted Cruz showed up and said he wouldn't delay the vote, I was pretty much done.

Good thing I didn't double down on VXX yesterday.  I wondered if some of the FWFOCH secretly bought a lot of VIX or US Treasury Default Swaps, but apparently their conscience won out in the end.

Since I'm having such a bad run, I'm going to take smaller positions and won't get into too many plays at once.

Tomorrow, I might try some unilateral earnings announcement plays.  Look at IBM move to the downside in Extended Hours Trading with a -$9.48 per share plunge, or -5.08%.  

Real money can be made as a semi-bear, but apparently, my current way is no better than the highway.  

Profiting from other people's financial misery is the one thing we can count on in these markets.  Today, I was the sacrificial lamb, but essentially no one is really safe, are they?


-4.14% SBA
-5.91% Roth IRA

+1.36% DJIA
+1.20% Nasdaq
+1.38% S&P 

+0.34% FTSE
+0.19% Eurofirst
+0.18% Nikkei
-1.81% Shanghai
-0.29% SENSEX
-0.46% Hang Seng

+0.97% WTI
+0.89% Brent
+0.63% Gold
-0.09% Copper
-0.28% Corn

+0.73% USD/JPY
+0.70% EUR/JPY


0.93 Put / Call Ratio

0.219 Treasurys | DTCC GCF Repo Index
0.218 MBS | DTCC GCF Repo Index


+1.41 DJT
-21.17% VIX


-2.52% 5-Year US Treasury Notes
-1.80% 10-Year US Treasury Notes


78% Advancing Issues on NYSE                    |   83% Up Volume
19% Declining Issues on NYSE                     |   15% Down Volume
3% Unchanged                                          |   2% Unchanged
265 New Highs   |   46 New Lows

69% Advancing Issues on Nasdaq                 |   77% Up Volume
28% Declining Issues on Nasdaq                  |   22% Down Volume
3% Unchanged                                          |   1% Unchanged
222 New Highs   |   17 New Lows


Today's Major Headlines

Buffett pays $1.1bn for IMI retail units

Treasuries risk losing superpower status

Bitcoin’s Validity — and Price — Gets Big Boost From Baidu


Gen X & Y might look back on this at a ripe old age and regret that we've been told that Treasuries are safe havens.