U.S. reservations down 36% as of yesterday, big cities 50%+

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...jTsPD/pubhtml#

Good find. I think very actionable. In my area....Alberta....massive drops. Short BPF.UN (BOston Pizza INcome Fund)

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetb...ay_set_up_for/

This guy has made a series of posts on the subject and they are quite interesting. I don't see MM as being as rigid as he describes, but it is interesting none-the-less. Also, some of it is a bit beyond my expertise so it would be helpful if some of the more knowledgeable guys could read it over and drop a quick opinion on his reasoning. Even more so if you go through his history and take a quick look at his other posts.

WSB is gambler/fish/****** fest. Good place to look at memes though.

It's a long post that doesn't really say much. I'm not even sure he knows what's talking about given:

Uh no. Buying options, both calls and puts, is long gamma. And if firms buy puts, why are MM buying calls? This guy sounds he literally learned about options last week.

It's a manipulative post. But you gotta love the comments. No one really questions or challenges it. They just want to know whether it'll be up or down.

anyone know if this is true?

and if this happens the markets would close?

Figured as much based on a reply he made, but wanted to double check

Slack?

a surface level analysis would assume it'd be a company to do pretty well with all the companies switching to remote work

yet the stock is sliding

How's the FIRE community weathering this storm. Not a great time to be needing to rejoin the workforce.

rickroll, I think everything is just a mass liquidation at this point. That said, I don't buy the Slack thesis. Slack have an operating loss of $600 million last year, and revenue was already slowing. Comically, their SG&A is larger than than their revenue at this point, and another $450 million in R&D on top takes them to -$600.

They have a highly unprofitable business model, and with easy money drying up and businesses wanting to spend less (and Slack being fine for most companies while free, their free stuff is too generous and designed for growth), it seems a thin bet just on more remote workers.

Something priced at $11 billion with a P/S of 20 on slowing revenue of $600 million and massive losses isn't going to do well in this environment even with the worker boost.

MSFT drinking their milkshake and they can't put their expenditure in order.

450m on r&d for a workplace chat application....man I really hope this is the end of the unicorns.

solid answers from all regarding slack

you guys are the best

as part of the vc bubble i've definitely been drinking that koolaid

at the risk of being scolded for not reading through one of the stickies i've been looking at resources for trading spy options for dummies and having trouble parse it all as it's 99.9% people trying to push their easy money day trading chart reading systems - would appreciate it if someone pushed me in the right direction for a video/article/book to get started on the fly

been eager to start playing around with options with some money i don't mind losing but definitely want to put in at least a few hours studying up a bit before dipping my toes in

Trial by fire. Look into a Think or Swim tutorial on how to use the platform, or any "advanced" trading platform, and read up on the option Greeks. You can do paper trading everywhere now and get experience for free even.

For me losing money is the ultimate motivator.

I think most would say the best advice is to stay away from options though

thank you, i'm someone who will learn 10x faster with some skin in the game so going to put in a small enough that i don't mind it disapearing but enough to prefer not to lose it

i guess i'm like the "should i quit my job and move to vegas" threads that make everyone cringe

Probably a bad time to get in on options. Extreme volatility is priced in and you're going to lose your mind and your starting money when the vol crushes down. There are also rapid reversals that will make you lose your shirt, especially at high vol. This is an expert's game now unless you have a months long view you want to express somehow (and at 70 VIX a lot of things are very priced in, even overpriced).

There's nothing special about options. People get bamboozled on this (hi Candy) but they're simply a way to bet on an outcome at various odds. Due to the huge fees and spread you need to reliably generate probabilities of outcomes accurately and get them cheap relative to that outcome. VIX at 2009 crash levels isn't a great time for that. There isn't the margin of error you need as a newcomer.

An example of a time to get options: With a pandemic incoming and the market at all time highs and giving zero chance of it happening. There was some comical mispricing then. There isn't now.

Ultimately though the alpha comes from reliably generating probabilities of outcomes, especially tail outcomes where you need a pretty good sense of both the market and a good rational analysis ability. If you can do that, knowing about options is almost superfluous, as how to express your opinion in options is trivial if you can see the outcome ranges clearly.

I hope that helps.

BTW I love Slack as an application but it's too easy to copy for <$50 million (let alone $450m R&D per year, wtf!) and Microsoft Teams is going to eat its whale-end lunch. It also has no pricing power with solid competitors in the space. It's just not a good bet and might even be a collapse bet (but I'm not making it).

I've heard versions of this rumor. It seems like they have been planning since Thu-Fri but the logistics of exactly how severe the lockdown is going to be is unknown. Some % to almost 100% of mass transit might be affected.

Whats your view on selling options? Selling $220 SPY puts is pretty attractive.

You're a retail trader you should never, ever sell puts.

1) It wasn't an odd market rally, it was the 2nd biggest drop in history since the Depression, and, just like in 1987, you should have expected a monster bounce the following day, esp with the drops earlier in the week, the fact that you ignored this possibility is telling.

2) Hope is not a strategy.

Their SPX500 contract is showing down 1.4%, fwiw.

I can't imagine the liquidity on this is even remotely comparable to just the opening volume on any of WallSt/Tokyo/London.

Also, who cares where it opens? At this rate could open up 5 close down 5 and vice versa just as easily.

This seems like a recepie for disaster in the current state of things. Yeah, you will probably make some money, but you also might lose 5k a contract for a chance at 100$

I bought put contracts on fridays close at around the $250 strike price may 15 so they were pretty expensive - around 3:45 pm - but i dunno how low this thing could go. You think the SPY could go to $170 a share?!?!

I've been buying puts since 2 weeks ago so i'm up a bit, but I keep adding them on the way down. I think i'm gonna start selling them if we have a down day on monday.

I wouldn't mind start buying the SPY at around $220 a share so I figured selling puts would be a decent way to go.

Source?

I made a lot of dumb assumptions in my post. If you wait for 250ish and sell some july 220's its probably not a recipe for disaster. July 200s would be even better imo, and I think JV suggested a similar trade.

But i also think we could realistically (as in, not worst case scenario) see 200-225 at this point based on how poorly the virus is being managed world wide.

IT would seem that way. How can any one make money when we are forced into our homes?