A put option (usually just called a "put") is a financial contract between two parties, the writer (seller) and the buyer of the option. The buyer acquires a short position by purchasing the right to sell the underlying instrument to the seller of the option for a specified price (the strike price) during a specified period of time.
The expiration date of the option can be 5 or 10 days down the road.
It's not clear what the best strategy to deal with a troll is. IMHO, it's better to engage them and keep them busy on 1 thread, even if it's filled with "offensive remarks", rather than let them flood the forums with 50 different threads.
Personally, I'm not offended by anyone's offensive language, so I could donate some of my time doing that
The SEC and the FBI, aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigate this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments. These investigators have found that the apparently suspicious consistently proved innocuous.
It also mentions that the trades were traced back to the US.
Are they innocuous just because the FBI and SEC said so, despite the highly unusual put/call ratio? If the FBI tells me that they tossed a coin twenty times and they got only heads, should I believe them?
Hell no, I know how unlikely it is: less than 1 in a million.
I showed how UK was made to agree with US that 1441 authorizes invasion, and how the other 8 SC members disagreed with that interpretation, saying that a second SC meeting/resolution is necessary. Therefore, the legality of the invasion with regards to the UN is dubious.
I also argued multiple times that the intelligence was fixed so as to justify the invasion. Plenty of people lied, among them Blair and Powell. And all of us were lied to.
Hahah of course, that was back in 2003. They were still in pretend mode. Since then we know that WMD etc. were all lies. Even in 2002-03, there was no intelligence supporting NIE 2002 claims:
The point is not the absolute number of put options, but the ratio of puts/calls. During days when the company announces earnings/guidance, it's normal to have big numbers of both puts and calls, with somehow more puts if they expect bad results, and somehow more calls if good results are anticipated. The ratio's normal values are from .8 to a bit more than 1. Then...
On Sept. 6-7, when there was no significant news or stock price movement involving United, the Chicago exchange handled 4,744 put options for UAL stock, compared with just 396 call options -- essentially bets that the price will rise. On Sept. 10, an uneventful day for American, the volume was 748 calls and 4,516 puts, based on a check of option trading records.
You can compute the rations yourself. That's what is hard to explain.
He wasn't "former" at the time; he retired from his post in November 2003.
Great... now we have a discussion!
I found this piece from your link interesting: The peer said he had disagreed with experienced international lawyers in the Foreign Office, who concluded that a further UN resolution was essential. Sir Michael Wood, the department's chief legal adviser, and his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, told the inquiry that all the lawyers within the department had agreed. "I paid great attention to their views, but ultimately I disagreed with the view that they took," Lord Goldsmith said. Yesterday, Mr Straw defended his decision to ignore repeated advice from lawyers in his own department that military action would be illegal. "I always take advice, but ministers have to decide," he said.
A minister who later quit alleges the following: She claimed Lord Goldsmith was pressured by Mr Blair to back the war, saying: 'I don’t have any evidence but in changing his mind on three occasions then to say unequivocally there was a legal basis… is so extraordinary.” 'He was put into House of Lords by Blair, put in Government by Blair, he was a commercial lawyer, excluded and then let in if he said the right thing. He didn't tell us the truth.'I find it very probable, yet I can't prove it.
Another quote for you from the actual Downing street memo:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.
About UNSC 1441:
Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, wrote to Sir John Chilcot on 25 June to allow the inquiry to publish more documents relating to the legal advice. The most significant of these documents was a note on 30 January 2003 by the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to Tony Blair. In the note Goldsmith wrote: "I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of [UN security council] resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council."
Goldsmith famously changed his mind on the legality of the war in March 2003 after Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the former chief of the defence staff, demanded a clear undertaking that military action would be lawful.
POWELL: It strikes me as quite odd that these tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets. Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so.
...insinuating non-conventional use. Here is the intelligence he had received 2 days before:
Our key remaining concern is the claim that the tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that "far exceeds US requirements for comparable rockets." In fact, the most comparable US system is a tactical rocket--the US Mark 66 air-launched 70mm rocket--that uses the same, high-grade (7075-T6) aluminum, and that has specifications with similar tolerances. Note that the Mk 66 specifications are unclassified, and the Department is planning to share them with the IAEA.
This difference of opinion came into focus during the discussion following the adoption of Resolution 1441. At that time, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte said: "This resolution contains no 'hidden triggers' and no 'automaticity' with respect to the use of force. If there is a further Iraqi breach, reported to the council by UNMOVIC, the IAEA, or a Member State, the matter will return to the council for discussion…. if the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of further Iraqi violations, this resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq or to enforce the relevant United Nations resolutions and protect world peace and security." The British ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, agreed.
But others saw things differently. The French ambassador expressed relief that "a two-stage approach" would ensure "that the Security Council would maintain control of the process at each stage." The Russian representative made clear that "the resolution just adopted contains no provisions for the automatic use of force" and warned against "yielding to the temptation of unilateral interpretation of the resolution's provisions." The Chinese delegate similarly said: "China supports the two-stage approach." Several nonpermanent Security Council members agreed. The Irish delegate noted: "As far as Ireland is concerned, it is for the Council to decide on any ensuing action." The Mexican ambassador stressed that "the use of force is valid only as a last resort, with prior explicit authorization required from the Security Council." The Bulgarian delegate said: "This resolution is not a pretext for automatic recourse to the use of force." The Colombian representative noted: "This resolution is not, nor could it be at this time, a resolution to authorize the use of force." Similarly, the ambassador from Cameroon expressed relief that the resolution "does not contain traps or automaticity." And the Syrian ambassador said: "The resolution should not be interpreted, through certain paragraphs, as authorizing any State to use force. It reaffirms the central role of the Security Council in addressing all phases of the Iraqi issue."
This is some of what Powell said about the infamous aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq, supposedly meant for their covert nuclear weapons program:
POWELL: t strikes me as quite odd that these tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets. Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so.
Powell's own intelligence staff, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), prepared two memos commenting on drafts of the presentation. They were later quietly released as appendices to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on WMD intelligence.
The second INR memo, written on February 3, 2003, told Powell this:
Our key remaining concern is the claim that the tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that "far exceeds US requirements for comparable rockets." In fact, the most comparable US system is a tactical rocket--the US Mark 66 air-launched 70mm rocket--that uses the same, high-grade (7075-T6) aluminum, and that has specifications with similar tolerances. Note that the Mk 66 specifications are unclassified, and the Department is planning to share them with the IAEA.
I didn't swear that they can't be trusted... it was you who asserted that the Bush admin CIA Director and Joint Chiefs of Staff propagated the story about the WMD... I just pointed out that that story was a lie.
Also, I didn't say Panetta and Mullen must be trusted; instead I mentioned them as sources to the numbers I gave, and I asked outdoorgirlsun who she trusts if not them. Evidently, I ain't defending anyone's honor.
Here is a piece from a NYT article:
Michael E. Leiter, one of the country’s top counterterrorism officials, said Wednesday that American intelligence officials now estimated that there were somewhat “more than 300” Qaeda leaders and fighters hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a rare public assessment of the strength of the terrorist group that is the central target of President Obama’s war strategy... Taken together with the recent estimate by the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, that there are about 50 to 100 Qaeda operatives now in Afghanistan, American intelligence agencies believe that there are most likely fewer than 500 members of the group in a region where the United States has poured nearly 100,000 troops... Both Mr. Leiter and Admiral Mullen were speaking at the same homeland security conference at the Aspen Institute, sponsored in part by The New York Times. Mr. Panetta’s public remarks came last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
deadbutwhy Forum Posts (1,295)
Maybe I exaggerated a bit 
RE: Do you beleive 9\11 was a inside job/?
Quote from wiki:A put option (usually just called a "put") is a financial contract between two parties, the writer (seller) and the buyer of the option. The buyer acquires a short position by purchasing the right to sell the underlying instrument to the seller of the option for a specified price (the strike price)
during a specified period of time.
The expiration date of the option can be 5 or 10 days down the road.