Adam Warner’s thoughts on the Buffett-GE deal – distraction from The Vote. And the plus tick rule too. Thank you, Adam, at Daily Options Report.
Buffett Watch!
Best news of this Buffett-GE deal? We get a little Becky in the Afternoon.
Second best? Well, gives them something to talk into the ground that’s not The Bailout Vote. And let’s be mistaken. GE. Buffett. From their vantage point it’s The. Biggest. Possible. News. EVAH!
Needless to see GE options volume and volatility have gotten explosive. Remember that monster XLI put trade last week? Still wondering whether that and perhaps ETF trading in general are ways around the shorting ban. Which (surprise surprise) looks likely to see an extension, And (surprise surprise) we may see a return of the plus tick rule.
Let me go on record as saying the plus tick rule literally would have done nothing to stop any of this. OK, I’ve probably voiced that opinion a time or three hundred, so let me just reiterate. I’m glad it’s coming back in the sense that it’s one less arrow in the Complaint Quiver. I have no idea the logic that says in a world where firms promised to lend more stock than they actually had, and shorts themselves had fails on top of fails, and the SEC did nothing remotely resembling enforcement, having a plus tick rule would have done anything. That was the easiest rule to get around LEGALLY. There are literally countless ways to get "economically" short a stock without getting physically short it. Not to mention that the far more draconian approach in existence right now has not exactly stemmed the tide.
