evening run

I cant get my youngest to sleep so I plopped her on the couch with the rest of the gang and thought id take a peek on the markets. The SPUZ are down 25 whopping cents - they cross 1000 and at night they sit there at 1025 down 25 cents - what a freaking joke. When I trade poorly or have a hard time making money I have less patience for just about everything and everyone. So tonight since my wife is out with the oldest and im at home with numbers 2,3, and 4 (and a friend for 2) Im not the worlds most pleasent guy. I mean seriously why cant the baby just go to sleep like a good baby - why? The other thing that ticks me off when trading is not going well is that the bills and expenses keep coming....I am attending two charity events this week and Im just not feeling very charitable. Oh well this too will pass.
During the market meltdown preferred shares of reits,insurance companies, and banks got hammered. Most of these straight preferreds are $25 par preferreds that yield anywhere between 5% and 9 %. Some of these preferreds traded down to 4 to 5 bucks a share - since then and especially recently these preferreds have rallied quite strongly some of them getting mighty close to par..when they get close to par they become interesting shorts in my opinion - for example JPMpJ is trading $24.76 - only .24 cents away from par - so if you short it here all you can lose principal wise is .24 cents (it could trade thru par) but unlikely. What you can lose on is dividends - when you are short a stock you are liable for the dividends. That being said at $24.76 its shows you that no one is at all concerned about JPM's franchise anymore - this preferred traded as low as $14 or so in the dark days. Remember in this biz if you zig when people are zagging you more often than not are doing the right thing.

Sleep tight

JB