I chickened out on my idea to short real-estate with SRS. I was spot on though on the further downside that seemed to be coming after the flag I was looking for to get short. I feel like going here with an ETF to short an index again. I like the volatility in SRS. It's prudent to wait though for more fundamental signals and technical breakdown though. So, I think I will. I think my valuation thesis makes sense and that as economic numbers will probably continue to show that this housing depression and economic recession are different than any in recent history. In other words it's hard to just get back to normal after a credit and housing bubble that lasted for many years. The only problem with a short trade for a couple days or so though I think is it could be possible that when the S&P and other indices finally correct a little the downside might be limited and they just trade sideways for weeks and months.
I was surprised and glad to see that Ben Bernanke said that businesses must be allowed to fail. I don't think he has the right framework for stopping them from becoming systemic though. I haven't read or seen his whole presentation today but it seems like he just thinks if you raise capital requirements and regulate to big to fail can be avoided? He needs to study some history if he thinks investment banks and commercial banks can exist together without major consequences to the system. Long Term Capital Management should have failed in 1998. Breaking up these ridiculous giants like Wells Fargo and Bank of America is the kind of reform that can allow firms that leverage up to fail. There's a reason my 1907 crash paper is second in a Google search for '1907 crash' only to Wikipedia.
I think our system is set up to fail now probably unfortunately though. I might post more on this as time goes by. Not sure if I should buy gold and silver bags or prepare for bartering when we can't afford these interest payments and/or they get raised.
full disclosure:no positions
