$4.5 billion 'Bin Laden Trade' stock market to crash before Sep 21

fatherdougalmag

Didn't know if it should go in 'conspiracy theories' or here ...
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b96_1188081846&p=1

Time Magazine

The nature of that link means it doesn't belong in Investments & Markets. Moved to Conspiracy Theories.

Jocksereire

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2369001.ece

Jocksereire

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/1/183018/1527

stevedublin

Any strike on Iran is likely to be in 2008 and not the next few weeks....

bonkey

People who think this is a sign of an attack don't know what a box-spread trade is.

RE*AC*TOR

bonkey wrote:

People who think this is a sign of an attack don't know what a box-spread trade is.

Enlighten us all then.

bonkey

Certainly

RE*AC*TOR

bonkey wrote:

Certainly

I was hoping that you could enlighten us in your own words. A lot of those sites are quite technical and full of industry jargon. From your first post i take it you understand what a box-spread trade is and you could explain that and what it means in this context....

bonkey

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

I was hoping that you could enlighten us in your own words.

I did. My own words were that people who think its sinister don't understand what a box-spread trade is.

By extension, one can infer that people who think its sinister almost-certainly don't understand the finer mechanics and technicalities of the financial market. (This isn't to say that those who don't think its sinister do understand the same, mind. a -> b does not require that !b -> !a.)

A lot of those sites are quite technical and full of industry jargon.

Indeed. This would support my suggestion that there are technicalities and finesse in the stock-market which aren't immediately accessible to the outsider. It would support the notion that people who don't understand this stuff aren't really in a position to interpret the meaning of it.

Its a bit like suggesting that people who aren't au fait with structural engineering aren't really in a position to gainsay those who are when it comes to that particular topic. There are those who would have us believe that "common sense" trumps all, and here as there, they can quite probably make the same argument.

Anyway...what we can say with no knowledge of the stock market whatsoever is that stock-market experts have looked at this and confirmed that it is a part of a known type of strategy. They're not just guessing at that, mind, they say they've confirmed it.

Now, still understanding nothing about the stock-market, we can conclude from this that this leaves us with very few realistic possibilities.

Its possible that they're all colluding to pull a fast one. But if they're all colluding, they don't need this trade to pull a fast one - they can just make money day in day out through collusion. So thats not likely.

Its possible that they've all been fooled by a small group who have placed the trades, with collusion from another small group who claim to have verified that its all innocuous. The rest of them have just swallowed this hook, line, and sinker and not bothered to look at the facts even after they made the news about being potentially sinister. Not likely - people that gullible wouldn't last long in the markets.

Its possible that they're telling the truth - that this is part of a strange, complex trade mechanism which is not unknown. This is consistent with everything we know, and the complexity of it which you have verified offers a credible reason for it to be misunderstood.

So even knowing nothing about what a box-spread trade is, we should be inclined to believe the reasoning offered by the experts who say they've confirmed that this is exactly that - a trading strategy.

From your first post i take it you understand what a box-spread trade is and you could explain that and what it means in this context....

I understand the principle, if not the finer details....mostly because I went and researched it, applying what I know of how the market works, and what various terms mean.

From what I've learned, the explanation offered appears to hold up to scrutiny.

I don't understand the details well enough that I'd be confident in explaining it in laymans terms well enough that my explanation wouldn't result in people deciding that their "common sense" interpretation of my laymans explanation carried more weight than the experts' analysis thus far.

RE*AC*TOR

It would have been more accurate and honest to say that people who think that its a sign of an attack aren't aware that it had been revealed that this is part of an alternative market strategy.

From your post, I think you implied that:

(a) you don't believe the theory
because
(b) you understand what a box spread is

However, I appreciate the work you put into your retroactive arguement, and occam's razor probably applies.

Hobbes

this seems to explain it best.

http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/optionsfutures/10377063.html

bonkey

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

It would have been more accurate and honest to say that people who think that its a sign of an attack aren't aware that it had been revealed that this is part of an alternative market strategy.

Well, I made the conscious decision to fight fire with fire.

If conspiracy theorists want to just believe what they read without doing some background research, I'm not going to offer them any politesse. Rather, I'm going to frame my argument in such a manner that it makes clear they haven't done their research.

I found the offered explanation for the trades within 5 minutes. I found explanations of what a box-trade were within another 2-3 minutes. I then spent maybe half an hour thinking through the description, and checking a few terms.

So I put in maybe 40 minutes because someone piqued my curiosity. I consider it time well spent, but having made that investment I sure as **** am not going to offer any false respect to anyone who's stance shows that they haven't done likewise.

CTers tell us to stop believing what we hear, and to learn to think for ourselves. Just look at jessop1's latest thread for a picture-perfect example of this. I've decided to highlight that believing what they hear, rather than researching and thinking for themselves is exactly what these guys are doing, they've just decided to use a different source.

Time Magazine

Not much happened, then.