4 ms·

What is the coming event that is going to close the window?

by mac01021 11y ago

Sideshow_Boob 11y ago
oil price rebound
throwappp 11y ago
Oil prises rising again.
- mac01021 11y ago
  If the tax takes the form of a fee-and-dividend (I think it probably should anyway), then higher oil prices shouldn't make it less politically viable (I think). Under such a policy, the average consumer of fuel will break even on the tax regardless. Google "carbon fee and dividend" or see this (http://www.skepticalscience.com/CCL-pushing-for-US-fee-and-d... http://www.skepticalscience.com/CCL-pushing-for-US-fee-and-d...) for more.
legitster 11y ago
In the short term I would worry about consumers adjusting to the lower prices and start buying more gas guzzling vehicles. In the long term, once the supply glut for oil is over the prices should normalize. Right now oil producers are basically playing chicken to see who can outlast the others, but I would expect prices to creek back eventually as the competition clears out.
- nickff 11y ago
  How confident are you in this belief? Are you shorting a diverse set of oil company stocks and/or buying oil futures, or just posting on the internet?
  - throwappp 11y ago
    Shorting profitably requires having a specific timeline for when oil stocks will be priced lower than today. You can't (profitably) just short something you think will be lower at some point in the future. You have to know when.
    - nickff 11y ago
      You can short sell over a term of years, usually at interest rates of ~1% (but varying depending on the company).[1] If you believe that there is even a 20% chance of a company going bankrupt over the course of the next 5 years, placing the bet will only cost you 5%-6% of your potential winfall, so your expected ROI is 15%. Commodity futures can also be purchased a few years out, as can options. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_(finance)#Short_selling_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_(finance)#Short_selling_...
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    I don't know if a guy "putting his money where his mouth is" is more or less trustworthy than a guy who isn't: * If I have a position, I'll want to convince everyone that I'm right because it'll make me right (if everyone thinks energy stocks are worthless, they will be.) That's why most people with lots of skin in the game, long or short, are very happy to publicly argue that their bet is correct. * Someone very risk-averse can think, correctly, that he's likely right, but loathe the 10% probability to lose money. Conversely, someone can be near-addicted to gambling and make bets based on very little, or someone can just be wrong regardless of their risk preference. Overall, a random commenter's arguments seem more interesting to me than their claim to have bet on being right, even if I trust this really hard to verify claim.
    - nickff 11y ago
      Prediction markets work much better than polls. This is because those who know are willing to bet on it, and those who do not are (rightly) reluctant.[1] Some such as Tetlock have (plausibly) claimed they can do even better than prediction markets, but not by listening to random commenters with no skin in the game.[2] TLDR; Talk is cheap, and people are much more careful with their wallets than their mouths (or keyboards). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock
      - _yosefk 11y ago
        Well, prediction markets do better than polls, but actual financial markets are in part prediction markets and they do pretty badly at times and sometimes there's a guy who calls a bubble long before it pops. And that guy doesn't necessarily stake a huge fortune on that prediction. So yeah, talk is cheap, and yeah, on average people are more careful with their wallets than their mouths, but on the other hand, people sometimes have interesting things to say, and asking how much money they bet on being right is less interesting to me than asking how they arrived at their conclusions. Now in some cases I will ask someone how much money he'd put on being right, but I'll do that when I think they're either wrong or fairly uninformed and yet very opinionated.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

What is the coming event that is going to close the window?

Sideshow_Boob 11y ago

oil price rebound

throwappp 11y ago

Oil prises rising again.

mac01021 11y ago
If the tax takes the form of a fee-and-dividend (I think it probably should anyway), then higher oil prices shouldn't make it less politically viable (I think). Under such a policy, the average consumer of fuel will break even on the tax regardless. Google "carbon fee and dividend" or see this (http://www.skepticalscience.com/CCL-pushing-for-US-fee-and-d... http://www.skepticalscience.com/CCL-pushing-for-US-fee-and-d...) for more.

legitster 11y ago

In the short term I would worry about consumers adjusting to the lower prices and start buying more gas guzzling vehicles. In the long term, once the supply glut for oil is over the prices should normalize. Right now oil producers are basically playing chicken to see who can outlast the others, but I would expect prices to creek back eventually as the competition clears out.

nickff 11y ago
How confident are you in this belief? Are you shorting a diverse set of oil company stocks and/or buying oil futures, or just posting on the internet?
- throwappp 11y ago
  Shorting profitably requires having a specific timeline for when oil stocks will be priced lower than today. You can't (profitably) just short something you think will be lower at some point in the future. You have to know when.
  - nickff 11y ago
    You can short sell over a term of years, usually at interest rates of ~1% (but varying depending on the company).[1] If you believe that there is even a 20% chance of a company going bankrupt over the course of the next 5 years, placing the bet will only cost you 5%-6% of your potential winfall, so your expected ROI is 15%. Commodity futures can also be purchased a few years out, as can options. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_(finance)#Short_selling_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_(finance)#Short_selling_...
- _yosefk 11y ago
  I don't know if a guy "putting his money where his mouth is" is more or less trustworthy than a guy who isn't: * If I have a position, I'll want to convince everyone that I'm right because it'll make me right (if everyone thinks energy stocks are worthless, they will be.) That's why most people with lots of skin in the game, long or short, are very happy to publicly argue that their bet is correct. * Someone very risk-averse can think, correctly, that he's likely right, but loathe the 10% probability to lose money. Conversely, someone can be near-addicted to gambling and make bets based on very little, or someone can just be wrong regardless of their risk preference. Overall, a random commenter's arguments seem more interesting to me than their claim to have bet on being right, even if I trust this really hard to verify claim.
  - nickff 11y ago
    Prediction markets work much better than polls. This is because those who know are willing to bet on it, and those who do not are (rightly) reluctant.[1] Some such as Tetlock have (plausibly) claimed they can do even better than prediction markets, but not by listening to random commenters with no skin in the game.[2] TLDR; Talk is cheap, and people are much more careful with their wallets than their mouths (or keyboards). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock
    - _yosefk 11y ago
      Well, prediction markets do better than polls, but actual financial markets are in part prediction markets and they do pretty badly at times and sometimes there's a guy who calls a bubble long before it pops. And that guy doesn't necessarily stake a huge fortune on that prediction. So yeah, talk is cheap, and yeah, on average people are more careful with their wallets than their mouths, but on the other hand, people sometimes have interesting things to say, and asking how much money they bet on being right is less interesting to me than asking how they arrived at their conclusions. Now in some cases I will ask someone how much money he'd put on being right, but I'll do that when I think they're either wrong or fairly uninformed and yet very opinionated.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]