...that I was having a damned good year in real life until I got my privates caught in the meat-grinder formerly known as BSC. My hat is off to Jamie Dimon for pulling off the deal of the century. :^( On the upside, unlike many of my former compadres, I am no longer exposed to the finance job market in NY/NJ, which is in the process of being swamped by former Bear folks. :^)

Anyway, I'm just trying to stay roughly market neutral in the long/short sense, while shorting garbage and longing stuff I have reason to think will outperform. I tend to think the regional banks exposed to alt-A, condo loans and commercial real-estate are dead, but the auto lenders and payday lenders aren't terribly positioned (or at least not as badly positioned, net.) Bad day to be short, though: DSL, CORS, FED, FBC, BKUNA are all cruddy but way up, never mind the SKF. My only saving grace was CSH blowing out their number on the long side.

I put in 200 SKF near the close, I think this is mostly relief at the current quarter's numbers not being complete disasters. Almost bought ACF but I didn't pull the trigger, which looks like a mistake because their profit dropped by less than expected and they managed to arrange a sort of securitization of sorts with Deutsche last week, which was vital.

I think two things are working in my favor:

A) I'm buying mostly financials, both long and short. High volatility, so I get shots at closing out positions for big gains very quickly.

B) The game lets you short stuff you can't readily short in real life. I haven't been able to find a share of DSL available for hypothecation for a couple of months, for instance, but I can short as much as I like in the game. In real life you can play puts, but the profits don't come as easily. The premiums are inflated because of the volatility.

Edit: Look for banks with big CA, FL or midwestern exposure in mortgages or CRE in particular to short. Rapidly increasing loan-loss reserves are a good short signal, and Option ARMs are basically time-bombs.

The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer

Efficient market, my a**.

They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...
-- General John B. Sedgwick, 1864