I'm lying.
I've done no such thing.
But lying is the cornerstone of contemporary journalism, so don't blame me if I'm trying to play by the rules.
I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it what a "Crack Spread Swap" is. Back in the day the NYMEX had your basic Brent Crude and Light Sweet Crude on offer and I could sort of figure out what was going on with the attendant strike prices and expiry dates.
The derivatives at least had a sensible trail that led back to the underlying commodity.
Sensible in the sense that if you thought about it, you could make sense of it.
To say there has been an explosion in the proliferation of derivative products in the past twenty years would be an understatement of vast proportions.
And it's not hard to understand why.
Every year tens of thousands of new MBA's are graduated from universities in America and beyond. They've got to do something.
Not a one of them is prepared to contribute anything to the real economy, so they are forced into the Rumpelstiltskin economy of paper-shuffling and inventing new derivative products, and I swear the NYMEX must be adding at least a dozen new derivative products every day.
That makes it more time-consuming to sort through the multiplicity of Crack Spreads and the Conway Propane BALMO Swaps and find the real, or at least "realer" stuff, the futures options that are going to make the clean clear jump the moment the war on Iran takes off.
Once Bibi pulls the trigger oil will triple overnight. The trick to maximizing your profits will be to buy those contracts that are just days away from expiry when the shit hits the fan.
Of course, if the shit doesn't hit the fan, you just kissed your life savings good-bye.
But time it right, and every penny you invest will turn into a hundred dollar bill.
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