ctkrohn

28 ms·

151.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
I don't think so. The reason we kept bouncing off the low 8000s on the Dow is because there are real money buyers who are buying stocks there based on fundamentals like P/E ratio, expected earnings, etc. These guys are going to hold on to
152.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
I think you fade this rally. The only news to come out today was very negative: consumer confidence came in at 38%, vs. the expected 52%. This was a record low. The Case-Schiller home price index dropped by a record amount as well. Othe
153.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Options don't become worthless when they're out of the money, as long as they haven't expired yet. The probability of the option being valuable at expiry is greater than zero, so the expected present value of the option is greater than zer
154.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
In their infinite wisdom, Congress decided to wipe out $1.2 trillion in market capitalization by not passing the plan, thus costing the economy $500 billion more than the bailout would have -- assuming the bailout would have no effect at al
155.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Add this one from the New York Fed: "Understanding the Securitization of Subprime Mortgage Credit" http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr318.html
156.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
What you've just described is a stock option. This is an extremely common form of executive compensation. The problem is that it incentivizes greater (and potentially dangerous) risk taking. Greater risks increase the probability of larg
157.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Right now things seem stable there, but the same could have been said of Lehman pre-Bear crisis. The problem is that like Bear and Lehman, Goldman relies on financing from other Wall Street firms to finance its operations. While a commerc
158.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Citadel, definitely. They already have started doing certain things once the domain of investment banks -- they make markets in stocks and options, for example. Recently they've hired a number of prominent fixed income traders, e.g. the h
159.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
The scary thing is that by the end of the year or so, we could be left without any of the former big five investment banks. The only remaining titans would be the commercial banks -- Citi, BofA, JPMorgan. I'd expect new market leaders to
160.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Well, it will be interesting to see how it works out, since Merrill owns 49% of BlackRock.
161.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
This is a very, very good thing. It will reduce mortgage rates and reinvigorate the housing market while ultimately reducing our economy's dependence on housing. In summary, here are the four key parts of the plan: (1) The Treasury purcha
162.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Actually, the government agreed to guarantee some of Chrysler's debt in 1979, and to buy large quantities of Chrysler vehicles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler#Government_loan_guaran...
163.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
A bailout has been rumored for quite some time. There have been a couple instances in the past few months where news outlets have reported that a weekend deal is imminent, but nothing ever came. The mortgage basis (i.e. the difference in
164.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Excel actually can do data validation. You can allow input only on certain cells, and allow the input to take values only in a range. Alternatively, you could do the validation in VBA.
165.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
EDIT: This primer from Goldman is a couple years old but still a great guide: http://www.classiccmp.org/transputer/finengineer/%5BGoldman%... As far as books go, there aren't any, unfortunately. I think it's because the mortgage-backed
166.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Ah yes, the difficulty of sarcasm over the Internet. All kidding aside, you're absolutely right that Fannie and Freddie shouldn't care about whether banks earn money trading mortgage bonds. I didn't mean to imply that banks, traders, or a
167.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
To the finance & trading nerds out there: here's why callable debt is such a big deal. Like everything else in the mortgage bond world, it all comes down to prepayments. Borrowers have the option to prepay their mortgage by refinancing
168.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
If Fannie and Freddie fail and shut down, you will not be able to get a mortgage for the next several years. This is not an exaggeration. Mortgage lenders depend on the ability to sell their mortgages to Fannie Mae; your average lender do
169.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
In Hunter's defense -- word on Wall Street is that after Citadel and JPMorgan bailed out Amaranth in 2006, they made a killing on Hunter's positions. Hunter had made ultimately profitable trades; Amaranth just wasn't able to withstand the
170.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
This summer I've read/am reading/am planning to read: * The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Robert Caro) * Options Volatility & Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques (Sheldon Natenberg) * Gotham: A His
171.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Pre-Firefox Mozilla (what became Seamonkey) could be made to work on Windows 95... I was unfortunately forced to do so one time. You had to download a couple extra drivers and install some updates from Microsoft, but it worked.
172.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
There's a definite pleasure in using old, well-designed pieces of technology that were state-of-the-art in their time and have managed to remain competitive with newer equipment. I love my record player, I still use a high-quality CRT, I r
173.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Why not learn? "I can't code to save my life" -- this doesn't have to be a permanent condition. Unless someone's truly a moron, I don't think there are many people who truly can't code, just like there aren't many people who can't learn
174.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
It's a little strange to attack the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for only giving away 10% of it's wealth per year and investing the rest. They give away a far larger proportion of their endowment than most other foundations. Notabl
175.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
It's amazing that Glenn Curtiss (the aviator mentioned in the article) set the land speed record in 1907 by riding a hand-built motorcycle at a sustained speed of 136.5mph. I'd be terrified to go that fast today, even with modern safety ge
176.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Also curious: what role do you see for Facebook in the mortgage market? It not really the most lucrative area right now...
177.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
I highly doubt a sovereign wealth fund would invest in Facebook. Most of their recent equity investments have been in dividend-paying stocks of US banks; they also tend to buy a lot of fixed income assets. Facebook won't be able to pay di
178.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
See what else is out there. Computers might be fascinating, but until you learn about a bunch of other fields, you will never know if they're what fascinates you most. Take as many classes as you can in as many areas as you're interested
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by ctkrohn 18y ago
I love the name. It's simple, memorable, and instantly identifies what the site does. A very refreshing change from the plague of generic Web 2.0-ish non-word names.
180.
by ctkrohn 18y ago
Would also be interesting to see how many people are working in tech vs. other fields. I definitely get the feeling that I'm one of the few people here in a non-computer-related area.

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