I'm trading for 11 months with pretty good success.
I never traded metals and forex before, just stocks. Today when gold started to consolidate at the last hour, I decided to scalp short it with a large amount, so I opened 100 lots. I haven't realised, in forex 100 (lots) doesn't mean "100 pcs", because I used to stocks and I went full retard without knowledge.
Seconds later, I realised it means 10 million dollars (1 lot = 100.000, and I had 500x leverage).
It moved up a bit and immediately I was down £4000. I scared as fuck and rather than closing the position quickly I hoped maybe I could close break even.
The market closed, and I waited for the Asian session. The gold popped like never before, and I lost all my life savings (£55000) in less than two hours. (including the 1-hour break between sessions).
If I count that I lost all my earnings as well, I lost around £85000.
Here is the margin call
https://imgur.com/a/XY5m4ZA
https://imgur.com/a/VSgmCSs
https://imgur.com/pRWl5g9
IC Markets closed my position partially in every 1-2 minutes until I shut it myself at £35.
You know the rest of the story. I'm depressed, crying and shouting with myself.
Yes, I know I was stupid, thanks. I just wanted to share this with you.
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Edit: WOW THANK YOU, GUYS! I haven't expected this, but you help me.
Many of you asked the same questions, I answer it here:
- I live in Europe, and we usually trade CFD's, not futures.
- Currency in GBP.
- As you can see, this account made on IC Markets. They not just allowing you a 500x leverage, it's the default.
- You can ask me why I went against the market. Because gold is way oversold? Because I expected institutions would sell their shares before gold is hitting £2000, leaving retails hanging there. Also, as I said, I wanted to scalp, not riding the gold all the way down. If I had a loss of £100, I would close the position immediately. But when I saw the £4000, my heart is stopped, and my brain just freezes.
- I went for a revenge trade with my last £2k, and I don't have to say what happened. I uninstalled the app, and I give up trading for a while.
- Again, in the past months, I was cautious, I lost a significant sum in March, but I managed to recover. Made consistent gains, always with SL. This is just an example of how easy is to fuck up everything you did.
- I didn't come here for some shiny digital medals. I can't tell about my losses to anyone who I know in real life. I would make a fool of myself.
- Anyone who attacking me that it is a scam. Well, think what you want. I feel terrible and the last thing is to answer all the messages saying "You fucking karma whore". I don't give a shit about karma.
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Hi there,
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My husband and I have been working on forex trading for a few years, and we are getting rather close to using trading to "retire" from traditional 9-5 jobs. Our concern, though, is that it looks like just about every US broker is uninsured and state that if the company becomes insolvent, they may liquidate all margin accounts. Oanda, for instance, states "In the event OANDA should become insolvent or file for protection under the bankruptcy laws, it is possible that you would lose the entire amount in your Margin Account. "
My question is if anybody here has found a way to "insure" the account to avoid this problem. The last thing we want is to pour our lives into it and rely on it, only to fall victim to a companies failure. I know, I know, its unlikely. But so was Lehman Brothers, and call me paranoid, but I am not one to want to rely on a corporation to put its customers first.
Thoughts?

I am posting this as I hope it will help other Australian options traders trading in US options with their tax treatment for ATO (Australian Tax Office) purposes. The ATO provides very little guidance on tax treatment for options trading and I had to do a lot of digging to get to this point. I welcome any feedback on this post.

The Deloitte Report from 2011

My initial research led me to this comprehensive Deloitte report from 2011 which is hosted on the ASX website. I've been through this document about 20 times and although it's a great report to understand how different scenarios apply, it's still really hard to find out what's changed since 2011.
I am mainly relating myself to the scenario of being an individual and non-sole trader (no business set up) for my trading. I think this will apply to many others here too. According to that document, there isn't much guidance on what happens when you're an options premium seller and close positions before they expire.
Note that the ATO sometimes uses the term "ETO" (Exchange Traded Option) to discuss what we're talking about here with options trading.
Also note: The ATO discusses the separate Capital Gains Tax ("CGT") events that occur in each scenario in some of their documents. A CGT event will then determine what tax treatment gets applied if you don't know much about capital gains in Australia.

ATO Request for Advice

Since the Deloitte report didn't answer my questions, I eventually ended up contacting the ATO with a request for advice and tried to explain my scenario: I'm an Australian resident for tax purposes, I'm trading with tastyworks in $USD, I'm primarily a premium seller and I don't have it set up with any business/company/trust etc. In effect, I have a rough idea that I'm looking at capital gains tax but I wanted to fully understand how it worked.
Initially the ATO respondent didn't understand what I was talking about when I said that I was selling a position first and buying it to close. According to the laws, there is no example of this given anywhere because it is always assumed in ATO examples that you buy a position and sell it. Why? I have no idea.
I sent a follow up request with even more detail to the ATO. I think (hope) they understood what I meant now after explaining what an options premium seller is!

Currency Gains/Losses

First, I have to consider translating my $USD to Australian dollars. How do we treat that?
FX Translation
If the premium from selling the options contract is received in $USD, do I convert it to $AUD on that day it is received?
ATO response:

Subsection 960-50(6), Item 5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) states the amount should be translated at the time of the transaction or event for the purposes of the Capital Gains Tax provisions. For the purpose of granting an option to an entity, the time of the event is when you grant the option (subsection 104-20(2) ITAA 1997).

This is a very detailed response which even refers to the level of which section in the law it is coming from. I now know that I need to translate my trades from $USD to $AUD according to the RBA's translation rates for every single trade.
But what about gains or losses on translation?
There is one major rule that overrides FX gains and losses after digging deeper. The ATO has a "$250k balance election". This will probably apply to a lot of people trading in balances below $250k a lot of the FX rules don't apply. It states:

However, the $250,000 balance election broadly enables you to disregard certain foreign currency gains and losses on certain foreign currency denominated bank accounts and credit card accounts (called qualifying forex accounts) with balances below a specified limit.

Therefore, I'm all good disregarding FX gains and losses! I just need to ensure I translate my trades on the day they occurred. It's a bit of extra admin to do unfortunately, but it is what it is.

Credit Trades

This is the scenario where we SELL a position first, collect premium, and close the position by making an opposite BUY order. Selling a naked PUT, for example.
What happens when you open the position? ATO Response:

The option is grantedCGT event D2 happens when a taxpayer grants an option. The time of the event is when the option is granted. The capital gain or loss arising is the difference between the capital proceeds and the expenditure incurred to grant the option.

This seems straight forward. We collect premium and record a capital gain.
What happens when you close the position? ATO Response:

Closing out an optionThe establishment of an ETO contract is referred to as opening a position (ASX Explanatory Booklet 'Understanding Options Trading'). A person who writes (sells) a call or put option may close out their position by taking (buying) an identical call or put option in the same series. This is referred to as the close-out of an option or the closing-out of an opening position.
CGT event C2 happens when a taxpayer's ownership of an intangible CGT asset ends. Paragraph 104-25(1)(a) of the ITAA 1997 provides that ownership of an intangible CGT asset ends by cancellation, surrender, or release or similar means.
CGT event C2 therefore happens to a taxpayer when their position under an ETO is closed out where the close-out results in the cancellation, release or discharge of the ETO.
Under subsection 104-25(3) of the ITAA 1997 you make a capital gain from CGT event C2 if the capital proceeds from the ending are more than the assets cost base. You make a capital loss if those capital proceeds are less than the assets reduced cost base.
Both CGT events (being D2 upon granting the option and C2 upon adopting the close out position) must be accounted for if applicable to a situation.

My take on this is that the BUY position that cancels out your SELL position will most often simply realise a capital loss (the entire portion of your BUY position). In effect, it 'cancels out' your original premium sold, but it's not recorded that way, it's recorded as two separate CGT events - your capital gain from CGT event D2 (SELL position), then, your capital loss from CGT event C2 (BUY position) is also recorded. In effect, they net each other out, but you don't record them as a 'netted out' number - you record them separately.
From what I understand, if you were trading as a sole tradecompany then you would record them as a netted out capital gain or loss, because the trades would be classified as trading stock but not in our case here as an individual person trading options. The example I've written below should hopefully make that clearer.
EXAMPLE:
Trade on 1 July 2020: Open position

• SELL -1 SPY 85 PUT, exp 30 August 2020
• Collect Premium USD$1 per unit, and brokerage USD$5
  • = USD$100 premium collected, minus USD$5
  • = Net amount of USD$95 collected
• FX Translation rate on the date of the trade: AUD $1.00 = $USD 0.70
  • Net Premium Collected in $AUD
  • = USD$95 x (1/.7)
  • = AUD$135.71
• CGT Event D2 triggered and a capital gain of $135.71 is recorded

Trade on 15 July 2020: Close position

• BUY 1 SPY 85 PUT, exp 30 August 2020
• Pay Premium $0.50 per unit, and brokerage $5
  • = $50 premium paid, plus $5
  • = Net amount of USD$55 paid
• FX Translation rate on the date of the trade: AUD $1.00 = $USD 0.60
  • Net Premium Collected in $AUD
  • = USD$55 x (1/.6)
  • = AUD$91.66
• CGT Event C2 triggered and a capital loss of $91.66 is recorded

We can see from this simple example that even though you made a gain on those trades, you still have to record the transactions separately, as first a gain, then as a loss. Note that it is not just a matter of netting off the value of the net profit collected and converting the profit to $AUD because the exchange rate will be different on the date of the opening trade and on the date of the closing trade we have to record them separately.
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What if you don't close the position and the options are exercised? ATO Response:

The option is granted and then the option is exercisedUnder subsection 104-40(5) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) the capital gain or loss from the CGT event D2 is disregarded if the option is exercised. Subsection 134-1(1), item 1, of the ITAA 1997 refers to the consequences for the grantor of the exercise of the option.
Where the option binds the grantor to dispose of a CGT asset section 116-65 of the ITAA 1997 applies to the transaction.
Subsection 116-65(2) of the ITAA 1997 provides that the capital proceeds from the grant or disposal of the shares (CGT asset) include any payment received for granting the option. The disposal of the shares is a CGT event A1 which occurs under subsection 104-10(3) of the ITAA 1997 when the contract for disposal is entered into.
You would still make a capital gain at the happening of the CGT event D2 in the year the event occurs (the time the option is granted). That capital gain is disregarded when the option is exercised. Where the option is exercised in the subsequent tax year, the CGT event D2 gain is disregarded at that point. An amendment may be necessary to remove the gain previously included in taxable income for the year in which the CGT event D2 occurred.

This scenario is pretty unlikely - for me personally I never hold positions to expiration, but it is nice to know what happens with the tax treatment if it ultimately does come to that.

Debit Trades

What about the scenario when you want to BUY some options first, then SELL that position and close it later? Buying a CALL, for example. This case is what the ATO originally thought my request was about before I clarified with them. They stated:

When you buy an ETO, you acquire an asset (the ETO) for the amount paid for it (that is, the premium) plus any additional costs such as brokerage fees and the Australian Clearing House (ACH) fee. These costs together form the cost base of the ETO (section 109-5 of the ITAA 1997). On the close out of the position, you make a capital gain or loss equal to the difference between the cost base of the ETO and the amount received on its expiry or termination (subsection 104-25(3) of the ITAA 1997). The capital gain or loss is calculated on each parcel of options.

So it seems it is far easier to record debit trades for tax purposes. It is easier for the tax office to see that you open a position by buying it, and close it by selling it. And in that case you net off the total after selling it. This is very similar to a trading shares and the CGT treatment is in effect very similar (the main difference is that it is not coming under CGT event A1 because there is no asset to dispose of, like in a shares or property trade).

Other ATO Info (FYI)

The ATO also referred me to the following documents. They relate to some 'decisions' that they made from super funds but the same principles apply to individuals they said.

The ATO’s Interpretative Decision in relation to the tax treatment of premiums payable and receivable for exchange traded options can be found on the links below. Please note that the interpretative decisions below are in relation to self-managed superannuation funds but the same principles would apply in your situation [as an individual taxpayer, not as a super fund].

Premiums Receivable: ATO ID 2009/110

• Key quote from this decision: CGT Event D2 will apply on the writing of an ETO by the Fund. The Fund as grantor of the option will make a capital gain (or loss) of the difference between the capital proceeds (that is, the premium receivable) and the cost of granting the option (for example, brokerage fees) at the time the option is granted
• My take on this is that you will realise a capital gain on issuing of the selling position. I don't see how you could realise a capital loss in that scenario? Or maybe if you sell a position and the brokerage is so high that it outweighs the premium received (a dumb trade) then that would be a capital loss (a rare scenario).
• Premiums Payable: ATO ID 2009/111
• Key quote from decision: When the Fund opens a position by buying an ETO, no immediate taxation consequences arise. CGT Event C2 will happen to the Fund when its position under an ETO is closed out where the close-out results in the cancellation, release or discharge of the ETO

Some tips

• Don't forget to declare your trades on your tax return and keep a nice spreadsheet
• Keep track of the exchange rates for each day you make a trade. You could do as you go and check the RBA exchange rates website for the daily number, or just do it all at once at the end of the financial year
• Finally - I recommend ensuring that you save a portion of your income to pay the capital gains tax at the end of the year so you don't have to withdraw it from your portfolio and pay exchange rate fees to convert it back to Australian dollars. It will depend on your marginal tax rate what that percentage will work out to be in the end.

So, I am learning the art of forex, and I am learning about the art of margin :)

1. I have created the demo account with 10K in the account balance and the 200 margin.
2. Then I bought a lot of lots. In particular, I bought 16 lots. Here's the pic - https://i.imgur.com/TAQsmTV.png
3. But the position size calculator tells me that I want to open a position with the 70-pips SL and with the risk exposure of 1.5%, I should specify the 0.21 lot sizing. It's a deal I have recently opened.
4. I googled and it's said that you should never take your margin to the vicinity of 100%. But it took me 16 lots to take my margin to that level! Thus, the 0.12 lot sizing equals to 1.25% of the 16 lots...
5. Thus, it looks like I am utilizing only 1.25% of the margin made availlable by the broker, right?
6. And, ofc, I should be basing my lot sizings based on the desired risk exposure and not based on the available margin because the second scenario is gambling.
7. So, do I understand this correctly:

a. margin is well... it's for gamblers, uknow, the folks who wouldn't be able to follow the narrative in this post... who treat forex like slots... playing, not trading with a good trading strategy.
b. but I can create the deals with super-tight SLs and let them run. Thus, if I already have the deal that is well into the profits zone, i can then just move SL from the original level to BE. And then I can open another deal. If I open the second deal, the cumulative margin utilization would result at 2.5% from the available volume. And thus, if I have 20 such deals running for months, then my margin utilization would be 25%, right? I mean it's not bad and there would be risk of the margin call... I would need to open 80 thus-sized deals to get to the dangerous area.
Did I get it right?

Factset: How You can Invest in Hedge Funds’ Biggest Investment
Tl;dr FactSet is the most undervalued widespread SaaS/IT solution stock that exists
If any of you have relevant experience or are friends with people in Investment Banking/other high finance, you know that Factset is the lifeblood of their financial analysis toolkit if and when it’s not Bloomberg, which isn’t even publicly traded. Factset has been around since 1978 and it’s considered a staple like Bloomberg in many wealth management firms, and it offers some of the easiest to access and understandable financial data so many newer firms focused less on trading are switching to Factset because it has a lot of the same data Bloomberg offers for half the cost. When it comes to modern financial data, Factset outcompetes Reuters and arguably Bloomberg as well due to their API services which makes Factset much more preferable for quantitative divisions of banks/hedge funds as API integration with Python/R is the most important factor for vast data lakes of financial data, this suggests Factset will be much more prepared for programming making its way into traditional finance fields. According to Factset, their mission for data delivery is to: “Integrate the data you need with your applications, web portals, and statistical packages. Whether you need market, company, or alternative data, FactSet flexible data delivery services give you normalized data through APIs and a direct delivery of local copies of standard data feeds. Our unique symbology links and aggregates a variety of content sources to ensure consistency, transparency, and data integrity across your business. Build financial models and power customized applications with FactSet APIs in our developer portal”. Their technical focus for their data delivery system alone should make it stand out compared to Bloomberg, whose UI is far more outdated and complex on top of not being as technically developed as Factset’s. Factset is the key provider of buy-side portfolio analysis for IBs, Hedge funds, and Private Equity firms, and it’s making its way into non-quantitative hedge funds as well because quantitative portfolio management makes automation of risk management and the application of portfolio theory so much easier, and to top it off, Factset’s scenario analysis and simulation is unique in its class. Factset also is able to automate trades based on individual manager risk tolerance and ML optimization for Forex trading as well. Not only does Factset provide solutions for financial companies, they are branching out to all corporations now and providing quantitative analytics for them in the areas of “corporate development, M&A, strategy, treasury, financial planning and analysis, and investor relations workflows”. Factset will eventually in my opinion reach out to Insurance Risk Management a lot more in the future as that’s a huge industry which has yet to see much automation of risk management yet, and with the field wide open, Factset will be the first to take advantage without a shadow of a doubt. So let’s dig into the company’s financials now:
Their latest 8k filing reported the following:
Revenue increased 2.6%, or $9.6 million, to $374.1 million compared with $364.5 million for the same period in fiscal 2019. The increase is primarily due to higher sales of analytics, content and technology solutions (CTS) and wealth management solutions.
Annual Subscription Value (ASV) plus professional services was $1.52 billion at May 31, 2020, compared with $1.45 billion at May 31, 2019. The organic growth rate, which excludes the effects of acquisitions, dispositions, and foreign currency movements, was 5.0%. The primary contributors to this growth rate were higher sales in FactSet's wealth and research workflow solutions and a price increase in the Company's international region
Adjusted operating margin improved to 35.5% compared with 34.0% in the prior year period primarily as a result of reduced employee-related operating expenses due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 11.0% to $2.63 compared with $2.37 for the same period in fiscal 2019.
Adjusted diluted EPS rose 9.2% to $2.86 compared with $2.62 in the prior year period primarily driven by an improvement in operating results.
The Company’s effective tax rate for the third quarter decreased to 15.0% compared with 18.6% a year ago, primarily due to an income tax expense in the prior year related to finalizing the Company's tax returns with no similar event for the three months ended May 31, 2020.
FactSet increased its quarterly dividend by $0.05 per share or 7% to $0.77 marking the fifteenth consecutive year the Company has increased dividends, highlighting its continued commitment to returning value to shareholders.
As you can see, there’s not much of a negative sign in sight here.
It makes sense considering how FactSet’s FCF has never slowed down:
https://preview.redd.it/frmtdk8e9hk51.png?width=276&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c0ff12539e0b2f9dbfda13d0565c5ce2b6f8f1a
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https://preview.redd.it/6axdb6lh9hk51.png?width=593&format=png&auto=webp&s=9af1673272a5a2d8df28f60f4707e948a00e5ff1
FactSet’s annual subscriptions and professional services have made its way to foreign and developing markets, and many of them are opting for FactSet’s cheaper services to reduce costs and still get copious amounts of data and models to work with.
Here’s what FactSet had to say regarding its competitive position within the market of providing financial data in its last 10k: “Despite competing products and services, we enjoy high barriers to entry and believe it would be difficult for another vendor to quickly replicate the extensive databases we currently offer. Through our in-depth analytics and client service, we believe we can offer clients a more comprehensive solution with one of the broadest sets of functionalities, through a desktop or mobile user interface or through a standardized or bespoke data feed.” And FactSet is confident that their ML services cannot be replaced by anybody else in the industry either: “In addition, our applications, including our client support and service offerings, are entrenched in the workflow of many financial professionals given the downloading functions and portfolio analysis/screening capabilities offered. We are entrusted with significant amounts of our clients' own proprietary data, including portfolio holdings. As a result, our products have become central to our clients’ investment analysis and decision-making.” (https://last10k.com/sec-filings/fds#link_fullReport), if you read the full report and compare it to the most recent 8K, you’ll find that the real expenses this quarter were far lower than expected by the last 10k as there was a lower than expected tax rate and a 3% increase in expected operating margin from the expected figure as well. The company also reports a 90% customer retention rate over 15 years, so you know that they’re not lying when they say the clients need them for all sorts of financial data whether it’s for M&A or wealth management and Equity analysis:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/factset.asp
https://preview.redd.it/yo71y6qj9hk51.png?width=355&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9414bdaa03c06114ca052304a26fae2773c3e45
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FactSet also has remarkably good cash conversion considering it’s a subscription based company, a company structure which usually takes on too much leverage. Speaking of leverage, FDS had taken on a lot of leverage in 2015:
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https://preview.redd.it/oxaa1wel9hk51.png?width=443&format=png&auto=webp&s=13d60d2518980360c403364f7150392ab83d07d7
So what’s that about? Why were FactSet’s long term debts at 0 and all of a sudden why’d the spike up? Well usually for a company that’s non-cyclical and has a well-established product (like FactSet) leverage can actually be good at amplifying returns, so FDS used this to their advantage and this was able to help the share’s price during 2015. Also, as you can see debt/ebitda is beginning a rapid decline anyway. This only adds to my theory that FactSet is trying to expand into new playing fields. FactSet obviously didn’t need the leverage to cover their normal costs, because they have always had consistently growing margins and revenue so the debt financing was only for the sake of financing growth. And this debt can be considered covered and paid off, considering the net income growth of 32% between 2018 and 2019 alone and the EPS growth of 33%
https://preview.redd.it/e4trju3p9hk51.png?width=387&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f6bee15f836c47e73121054ec60459f147d353e
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EBITDA has virtually been exponential for FactSet for a while because of the bang-for-buck for their well-known product, but now as FactSet ventures into algorithmic trading and corporate development the scope for growth is broadly expanded.
https://preview.redd.it/yl7f58tr9hk51.png?width=489&format=png&auto=webp&s=68906b9ecbcf6d886393c4ff40f81bdecab9e9fd
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P/E has declined in the past 2 years, making it a great time to buy.
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https://preview.redd.it/4mqw3t4t9hk51.png?width=445&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8d719f4913883b044c4150f11b8732e14797b6d
Increasing ROE despite lowering of leverage post 2016
https://preview.redd.it/lt34avzu9hk51.png?width=441&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3742ed87cd1c2ccb7a3d3ee71ae8c7007313b2b
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Mountains of cash have been piling up in the coffers increasing chances of increased dividends for shareholders (imo dividend is too low right now, but increasing it will tempt more investors into it), and on top of that in the last 10k a large buyback expansion program was implemented for $210m worth of shares, which shows how confident they are in the company itself.
https://preview.redd.it/fliirmpx9hk51.png?width=370&format=png&auto=webp&s=1216eddeadb4f84c8f4f48692a2f962ba2f1e848
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SGA expense/Gross profit has been declining despite expansion of offices
I’m a bit concerned about the skin in the game leadership has in this company, since very few executives/board members have significant holdings in the company, but the CEO himself is a FactSet veteran, and knows his way around the company. On top of that, Bloomberg remains king for trading and the fixed income security market, and Reuters beats out FactSet here as well. If FactSet really wants to increase cash flow sources, the expansion into insurance and corp dev has to be successful.
Summary: FactSet has a lot of growth still left in its industry which is already fast-growing in and of itself, and it only has more potential at its current valuation. Earnings September 24th should be a massive beat due to investment banking demand and growth plus Hedge fund requirements for data and portfolio management hasn’t gone anywhere and has likely increased due to more market opportunities to buy-in.
Calls have shitty greeks, but if you're ballsy October 450s LOL, I'm holding shares
I’d say it’s a great long term investment, and it should at least be on your watchlist.

Disclaimer: This DD is to help start forming a market view as per RBI announcements. Also a gentle reminder that fundamentals play out over a longer time frame than intraday. The authors take no responsiblity for your yolos.
With contributions by Asli Bakchodi, Bran OP & dragononweed!
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What is the RBI?
RBI is the central bank of India. They are one of the key players who affect India’s economic trajectory. They control currency supply, banking rules and more. This means that it is not a bank in which retailers or corporates can open an account with. Instead they are a bank for bankers and the Government of India.
Their functions can be broadly classified into 6.
· Monetary authority
· Financial supervisor for financial system
· Issuer of currency
· Manages Foreign exchange
· Bankers bank
· Banker to the government
This DD will take a look at each of these functions. It will be followed by a list of rates the RBI sets, and how changes in them can affect the market.
1. Monetary Authority
One of RBI’s functions is to achieve the goal of “Price Stability” in the economy. This essentially means achieving an inflation rate that is within a desired limit.
A monetary policy committee (MPC) decides on the desired inflation rate and its limits through majority vote of its 6 members, in consultation with the GoI.
The current inflation target for RBI is as follows
Consumer Price Inflation (CPI): 4%
Upper Limit: 6%
Lower Limit: 2%
An increase in CPI means less purchasing power. Generally speaking, if inflation is too high, the public starts cutting down on spending, leading to a negative impact on the markets. And vice versa. Lower inflation leads to more purchasing power, more spending, more investments leading to a positive impact on the market.
2. Financial Supervisor For Financial System
A financial system consists of financial markets (Capital market, money market, forex market etc.), financial institutions (banks, stock exchanges, NBFC etc) & financial assets (currencies, bills, bonds etc)
RBI supervises this entire system and lays down the rules and regulations for it. It can also use further ‘Selective Credit Controls’ to regulate banks.
3. Issues of currency
The RBI is responsible for the printing of currency notes. RBI is free to print as much as it wants as long as the minimum reserve of Rs 200 Cr (Gold 112 Cr) is maintained. The RBI has total assets or a balance size sheet of Rs. 51 trillion (April 2020). (1 Trillion = 1 Lakh crore)
India’s current reserves mean our increase in currency circulation is well managed.
4. Manages Foreign Exchange
RBI regulates all of India’s foreign exchange transactions. It is the custodian of all of foreign currencies in India. It allows for the foreign exchange value of the rupee to be controlled. RBI also buy and sell rupees in the foreign exchange market at its discretion.
In case of any currency movement, a country’s central bank can directly intervene to either push the currency up, as India has been doing, or to keep it artificially low, as the Chinese central bank does. To push up a currency, a central bank can sell dollars, which is the global reserve currency, or the currency against which all others are measured. To push down a currency, a central bank can buy dollars.
The RBI deciding this depends on the import/export and financial health of the country. Generally a weaker rupee means imports are more expensive, but are favourable for exports. And a stronger rupee means imports are cheaper but are unfavourable for exports.
A weaker rupee can make foreign investment more lucrative driving up FII. A stronger rupee can have an adverse effect of FII investing in markets.
5. Banker’s Bank
Every bank has to maintain a certain amount of reserve with the RBI. A certain percentage of a bank’s liabilities (anywhere between 3-15% as decided by RBI) has to be maintained in this account. This is called the Cash Reserve Ratio. This is determined by the MPC during the monetary policy review (which happens every six weeks at present).
It lends money from this reserve to other banks if they are short on cash, but generally, it is seen as a last resort move. Banks are encouraged to meet their shortfalls of cash from other resources.
6. Banker to the government
RBI is the entity that carries out ALL monetary transactions on behalf of the Government. It holds custody of the cash balance of the Government, gives temporary loans to both central and state governments and manages the debt operations of the central Government, through instruments of debt and the interest rates associated with them - like bonds.
The different rates set & managed by RBI
- Repo rate
The rate at which RBI is willing to lend to commercial banks is called as Repo Rate.
Banks sometimes need money for emergency or to maintain the SLR and CRR (explained below). They borrow this from RBI but have to pay some interest on it. The interest that is to be paid on the amount to the RBI is called as Repo Rate.
It does not function like a normal loan but acts like a forward contract. Banks have to provide collateral like government bonds, T-bills etc. Repo means Repurchase Option is the true meaning of Repo an agreement where the bank promises to repurchase these government securities after the repo period is over.
As a tool to control inflation, RBI increases the Repo Rate making it more expensive for banks to borrow from the RBI with a view to restrict availability of money. Exact opposite stance shall be taken in case of deflationary environment.
The change of repo rate is aimed to affect the flow of money in the economy. An increase in repo rate decreases the flow of money in the economy, while the decrease in repo rate increases the flow of money in the economy. RBI by changing these rates shows its stance to the economy at large whether they prioritize growth or inflation.
- Reverse Repo Rate
The rate at which the RBI is willing to borrow from the Banks is called as Reverse Repo Rate. If the RBI increases the reverse repo rate, it means that the RBI is willing to offer lucrative interest rate to banks to park their money with the RBI. Banks in this case agree to resell government securities after reverse repo period.
Generally, an increase in reverse repo rate that banks will have a higher incentive to park their money with RBI. It decreases liquidity, affecting the market in a negative manner. Decrease in reverse repo rate increases liquidity affecting the market in a positive manner.
Both the repo rate and reverse repo rate fall under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility tools for RBI.
- Cash reserve ratio (CRR)
Banks in India are required to deposit a specific percentage of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) in the form of CASH with the RBI. This minimum ratio (that is the part of the total deposits to be held as cash) is stipulated by the RBI and is known as the CRR or Cash Reserve Ratio. These reserves will not be in circulation at any point in time.
For example, if a bank had a NDTL (like current Account, Savings Account and Fixed Deposits) of 100Cr and the CRR is at 3%, it would have to keep 3Cr as Cash reserve ratio to the RBI. This amount earns no interest.
Currently it is at 3%. A lower cash ratio means banks can deposit just a lower amount and use the remaining money leading to higher liquidity. This translates to more money to invest which is seen as positive for the market. Inversely, a higher cash ratio equates to lower liquidity which translates to a negative market sentiment.
Thus, the RBI uses the CRR to control excess money flow and regulate liquidity in the economy.
- Statutory liquidity ratio (SLR)
Banks in India have to keep a certain percentage of their net demand and time liabilities WITH THEMSELVES. And this can be in the form of liquid assets like gold and government securities, not just cash. A lot of banks keep them in government bonds as they give a decent interest.
The current SLR ratio of 18.25%, which means that for every Rs.100 deposited in a bank, it has to invest Rs.18.50 in any of the asset classes approved by RBI.
A low SLR means higher levels of loans to the private sector. This boosts investment and acts as a positive sentiment for the market. Conversely a high SLR means tighter levels of credit and can cause a negative effect on the market.
Essentially, the RBI uses the SLR to control ease of credit in the economy. It also ensures that the banks maintain a certain level of funds to meet depositor’s demands instead of over liquidation.
- Bank Rate
Bank rate is a rate at which the Reserve Bank of India provides the loan to commercial banks without keeping any security. There is no agreement on repurchase that will be drawn up or agreed upon with no collateral as well. This is different from repo rate as loans taken with repo rate are taken on the basis of securities. Bank rate hence is higher than the repo rate.
Currently the bank rate is 4.25%. Since bank rate is essentially a loan interest rate like repo rate, it affects the market in similar ways.
- Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR)
This is the minimum rate below which the banks are not allowed to lend. Raising this rate, makes loans more expensive, drying up liquidity, affecting the market in a negative way. Similarly, lower MCLR rates will bring in high liquidity, affecting the market in a positive way.
MCLR is a varying lending rate instead of a single rate according to the kind of loans. Currently, the MCLR rate is between 6.65% - 7.15%
- Marginal Standing facility
Marginal Standing Facility is the interest rate at which a depository institution (generally banks) lends or borrows funds with another depository institution in the overnight market. Overnight market is the part of financial market which offers the shortest term loans. These loans have to be repaid the next day.
MSF can be used by a bank after it exhausts its eligible security holdings for borrowing under other options like the Liquidity adjustment facilities.
The MSF would be a penal rate for banks and the banks can borrow funds by pledging government securities within the limits of the statutory liquidity ratio.
The current rate stands at 4.25%. The effect it has on the market is synonymous with the other lending rates such as repo rate & bank rate.
- Loan to value ratio
The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is an assessment of lending risk that financial institutions and other lenders examine before approving a mortgage. Typically, loan assessments with high LTV ratios are considered higher risk loans.
Basically, if a companies preferred form of collateral rises in value and leads the market (growing faster than the market), then the company will see the loans that it signed with higher LTV suddenly reduce (but the interest rate remains the same).
Let’s consider an example of gold as a collateral. Consider a loan was approved with gold as collateral. The market price for gold is Rs 2000/g, and for each g, a loan of Rs 1500 was given. (The numbers are simplified for understanding). This would put LTV of the loan at 1500/2000 = 0.75. Since it is a substantial LTV, say the company priced the loan at 20% interest rate.
Now the next year, the price of gold rose to Rs 3000/kg. This would mean that the LTV of the current loan has changed to 0.5 but the company is not obligated to change the interest rate. This means that even if the company sees a lot of defaults, it is fairly protected by the unexpected surge in the underlying asset. Moreover, since the underlying asset is more valuable, default rates for the loans goes down as people are more protective of the collateral they have placed.
The same scenario for gold is happening right now and is the reason for gold backed loan providers like MUTHOOT to hit ATHs as gold is leading the economy right now. Also, these in these scenarios, it also enables companies to offer additional loan on same gold for those who are interested Instead of keeping the loan amount same most of the gold loan companies.
Based on above, we can see that as RBI changes LTV for certain assets, we are in a position to identify potential institutions that could get a good Quarterly result and try to enter it early.
Conclusion
The above rates contain the ways in the Central Bank manages the monetary policy, growth and inflation in the country.
Its impact on Stock market is often seen when these rates are changed, they act as triggers for the intraday positions on that day. But overall, the outlook is always maintained on how the RBI sees the country is doing, and knee jerk reactions are limited to intraday positions. The long term stance is always well within the limits of the outlook the big players in the market are expecting.
The important thing to keep in mind is that the problems facing the economy needn’t be uni-dimensional. Problems with inflation, growth, liquidity, currency depreciation all can come together, for which the RBI will have to play a balancing role with all it powers to change these rates and the forex reserve. So the effect on the market needs to be given more thought than simply extrapolated as ‘rates go low, markets go up’.
But understanding these individual effects of these rates allows you to start putting together the puzzle of how and where the market and the economy could go.

I'm hoping someone here can tell me the best way to hedge against the very real possiblity of USD inflation given infinite QE paradigm we are in and JPow ready to print trillions more dollars.
I'm thinking Euros and Swiss Francs. Also got some Gold and Silver, but those things will sell off hard if a correction (or crash) happens in order for investors to cover margin calls.
Would like some specifics (e g. comapnies/foreign banks that will let me open an account and transfer money into other currencies with minimal fees). I know I can go open a forex account, but I dont wanna pay taxes on any gains from simply trying to keep cash safe and its value stable.
Can some more experienced investors please shed some light on this.
P.S. I dont buy the narrative that we are in a deflationary period. Whether that is true or not, a devaluation of the dollar is creeping steadily upon the horizons IMO. I'm simply asking the best way to take up positions in stable currency/asset without getting boned by any capital gains tax or bogus fees/spreads on the spot price.

I just talk about really major pairs like EURUSD, USDJPY, etc.
Forget about catching a trend, if you wanna trade trends, commodities, stocks, index funds trend way better, a lot more opportunities than forex. Major currencies range at least 70% of the time, if not more. Learn how to make money from ranging markets and hold a trend once you catch it.
The biggest purpose of currency is for settling transactions, not for scalping profits. That's why it doesn't trend (aka remaining stable). Stability is why a currency being "major".
Therefore most indicators don't work well with these currencies because first they are not designed for forex, second most of them only tell trends or overbought/oversold. Unless you are Soros or central banks etc no major currency can be overbought or oversold.
Take advantage of "fakeout" (I still wonder if it's the right way to call it so, Trump's Tweets are one of the sources IMO). Accept the fact that it happens and think about how to profit from it. Market makers and big banks are also just market players, even though very much bigger, they are also profiting from each other. If you can't beat them, join them.
Choppy market is still better than a still market.
No market maker cares about support or resistance. Like no insider or institutional money (i mean human not machines) would spend hours and hours on charts drawing trend lines before they place an order. Why would you?
Planning how to react in different scenarios after a position is opened is much better than trying to act like a crystal ball by looking at history when you trade something that ranges most of the time. The moment you observe a trend, chances are the trend is (almost) over. Even if things are against you, most of the time you can turn it to break even without using lots of margin. (Most news are just as big as baby's cough.)
But still, very few news are really big (911, fukushima, brexit, covid, name it), don't ignore the news completely.
Money management is very important. Most traders (of course including many of those on reddit) just talk about how to make an entry but seldom talk about how to manage an already open position or how to close a trade. The latter is way more important than the former.
Besides japanese candlesticks, there are a lot more charting options out there.
Be creative and know what you are trading to the deepest !

I got a called from a guy claimed to be a freelance financial broker a few months ago. He introduced me to a platform for forex trading, and tell me to make a new account on the site and he'll manage my account to trade forex using Metatrader 4. He will take 10% of the profit. He told me to think of this as a long term plan. He also said the platform gives my account some credits if I deposit, to kick start the investment. Something suspicious I found during this step, that his Skype account has a different name to his Skype name, like he's using sb else's account. I stupidly still make an account and deposit the money.
Slowly, he starts creating some pressure by holding some risky trades and ask me to deposit more money to increase the margin and keep the trade. He also told me to make a test withdrawal with a small amount of money to make sure that it didn't disrupt the current trades, and I did, and it went smoothly. So I keep depositing money until my friend realize he changed some number on some trades to turn a loss into a win trade. Then I started being very suspicious and looking for info. Turns out I can't contact the platform for anything without going through him. The support email doesn't exist, I can't change my password, the company running the platform only has 3 employees in the UK, with the same last name. I started being scared and tried to withdraw a large amount of the money.
At first some guy call me and said they're from the platform to help me withdraw the money, but he uses the same phone number. He told me I have to deposit 10% of the amount I withdraw, as commission, if I want to take it. I told him to get it from my profit, but he keep saying it doesn't work that way. I never heard from the support guy again. The broker resume contact with me after a while and I told him again I'll be withdrawing a large amount of money. He first say it's okay, but then later when I contact him to actually do it he again says I'll have to pay a fee because withdrawing big money means "closing" the account. He only allow me to withdraw another test withdrawal, and I did. This time the money hasn't come in for a while now. I'm quite certain I got scammed, but I still wants to hear some opinions out there, or at least give an example so others don't get caught in the same scam. Just be careful, don't take calls from stranger, especially if they call you and tell you to invest in sth. They can look and act normal at first, but they'll change their behavior.
Also sorry if there's some grammar errors, English is not my native language.

With so many alternative ways of investing in markets, these days, working out which is right for you, can be more challenging than ever. While some areas, such as CFD’s have become fashionable, as we all know, fashion lasts just a season at best! Options, however, are now approaching their 40th Anniversary on the Australian Stock Market – they aren’t fashion, they are style, and real style never dates!

What are some of the key benefits of trading options?

More than any single investment vehicle, options provide flexibility. By that, I mean you can have the potential to profit from a whole range of market conditions – Up, Down, Sideways, Extremely Volatile, not volatile and frankly, no other investment vehicle can offer this kind of opportunity, period!
Options can be used to manage risk, or to protect and hedge, or to generate income, or to exploit market moves for leveraged capital gain, or to profit from no move in the market – again – no other investment vehicle is able to offer this!!
Perhaps most importantly, for many, they bring leverage to the table in what is a potentially far safer way than other instruments. Specifically, with instruments such as Forex, Margin Lending, CFDs or Futures, it is possible to lose more money than you put down. In other words you become the victim of a margin call. With a bought option this is simply not possible – you cannot lose more than you put in.

What about security?

Options are what is known as an Exchange Traded Instrument or ETO for short. This means that all trades are cleared out through a regulated exchange, be that the ASX in Australia, or in the US, the Nasdaq for example. By trading through an exchange there is an enormous safety net. That safety net is zero counterparty risk.
Because all trades are cleared through an exchange, a process called Novation means that if the other person or broking firm on the other side of the transaction is unable to settle, fails financial or has no money, your position is guaranteed by the Exchange themselves, who stand behind the trade. While you may not necessarily appreciate the significance of this, it is huge!
By contrast, trading on CFDs or Forex are Over The Counter or OTC products where, as an investor, you are not protected by the Exchange, to effectively guarantee the other side of the trade. In short, if the counterparty fails, you lose your money…
Trust me, in today’s market this is critically important and hence why we love Options.

Are there risks with Options trading?

Yes there are but in the majority of cases, these risks can be mitigated. Specifically there are strategies that are lower risk, and others that are higher.
As a result, learning which strategies best fit for you and your circumstances, is an important and often missed step.
For example, “Naked” or “Sold only” positions in the options market can be extremely risky, hence we encourage our clients to avoid these like the plague! That is of course, until they have built up a good level of expertise. Instead, we far prefer lower risk strategies that have the ability to more consistently offer a steady return.

Today’s lesson goes to be somewhat controversial and should ruffle some feathers. I shall blow wide open and debunk tons of the knowledge you've got presumably been exposed to the present far in your trading journey.
The average trader is out there walking through a confusing and conflicting maze of data from a spread of sources including; blogs, forums, broker websites, books, e-books, courses and YouTube videos.
With of these learning resources available there's naturally getting to be some excellent and a few very bad information, but actually , there just isn’t how for many aspiring traders to understand what to concentrate to, who to concentrate to, or what information is useful and what information is non-beneficial.
I’m not getting to pretend that there's how for an aspiring trader to filter this giant sea of data composed by of these resources and mentors out there, because there simply isn’t. knowledgeable trader with 10,000 hours of experience might stand an opportunity of deciding the great from the bad and therefore the valid from the invalid. However, you, the beginner or intermediate trader simply won’t possess that filtering ability yet.
Becoming ‘Non-Average’
As traders, we concede to our instinctive feelings of social trustworthiness supported what we see and listen to , often to our extreme detriment. we frequently tend to require a leap of religion with our mentors and have a habit of taking things said to us at face value. we would like to hold close information that resonates with us and is sensible to us, especially if it’s delivered by a well-known source that we've come to understand and trust.
The ‘average trader’s brain’ is usually trying to find a shortcut due to the overwhelming desire to form money and be free. The brain wants to urge a winning result immediately with the smallest amount amount of effort possible. If you would like to ever make it as a professional trader or investor, I suggest you are doing everything you'll to avoid thinking with the ‘average trader’s brain‘ and begin being ‘non-average’. meaning becoming far more aware, thinking outside the box more and questioning and filtering the knowledge you read and watch. most significantly , slowing everything all down!
This now begs the apparent question…how does one even know what I’m close to write during this lesson is actually valid and factual? How are you able to really be sure? the reality is unless you've got followed me and my posts on this blog for an extended time and know me and know my work, then you can’t really make certain , and that i don’t expect you to easily believe it at face value. If you would like to return back and re-read this lesson during a few weeks, or a couple of months, or a couple of years, after you work out that i'm somebody worth taking note of about trading OR that i'm somebody not worth taking note of about trading, then so be it.
So with a degree of healthy skepticism, I ask you to think about the below list of eye-opening secrets that professional traders and therefore the trading industry, don’t want you to understand about or understand. I hope it helps…
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FOREX isn’t the sole market the Professionals trade
The FX market is large , with billions of dollars per day changing hands. It can cause you to great money if you recognize what you’re doing OR it can send you broke if you don’t. It’s a really popular market to trade globally, BUT it’s not the sole market the professional’s trade and it’s not always the simplest market to trade either.
A note on leverage:
The brokers and platform providers want you to trade FX on high leverage because the profit margins are very high for them. However, if you trade FX on lower leverage, the profit margins shrink dramatically for them. once you trade FX, start brooding about what can fail rather than just brooding about what can go right. I suggest avoiding stupidly high leverage like 400 to 1, as this will be very dangerous for you if the market moves quickly or experiences a price gap and your stop-loss orders aren’t executed at the worth you set. A more sensible leverage level would be 100 to 1 or 200 to 1, but any higher seems crazy. (Using an excessive amount of leverage is what wiped tons of traders out during Swiss Bank Crisis in 2015, The Brexit choose 2016 and therefore the Currency flash crash in early 2019).
Broaden your view:
Going forward, it'll serve you well in your trading career to start out watching a spread of worldwide markets including FX, Stock Indicies and Commodities. additionally to FX, I personally trade GOLD (XAUUSD), S&P500 Index USA, the SPI200 Index Australia, and therefore the Hang Seng Index Hong Kong , and sometimes individual stocks on various global exchanges. In short, there's more to the trading world than simply FX. I discuss the foremost popular markets I trade this lesson here.
Day trading isn’t what Pro trading really is
The internet is crammed with marketing trying to convince folks that the definition of a trader may be a one that spends all day actively trading in and out of the market on a brief term basis, all whilst living the life-style of a Wall St millionaire. there's a significant agenda within the industry to push this story to the masses, it's been relentless for many years .
I am yet to satisfy one successful day trader who is consistent over the future and that i have almost 25,000 students and 250,000 readers on this blog. i'm not saying there isn’t a couple of out there, but 99.9% of the people that do this sort of trading or attempt to live up to the standard day trader stereotype are getting to fail and perhaps even harm themselves financially or mentally. Watching a screen all day and searching for trades constantly is that the like a compulsive gambler playing roulette during a casino.
The successful traders i do know of (myself included) are watching higher time frames and longer time horizons (minimum 4-hour chart timeframes and predominantly daily chart time frames). they need no restriction on how long they're looking to carry a trade for and that they tend to let the trades find them. The professionals i do know , don't day trade, they are doing not watch screens all day, they are doing not search for trades constantly. they're going to typically fall under the category of a swing trader, trend trader or position trader.
The obvious paradox and conflicting reality within the ‘day trader story’ is blatantly obvious. How does a trader who is consistently watching a screen and constantly trading have time to enjoy his life and live the lifestyle? They chose to trade as a profession to possess a life, they didn’t choose it to observe a screen 24/5.
Here are some points to think about that employment against the so-called ‘ day trader’:
The shorter the time-frame the more noise and random price movement there's , thus increasing your chance of simply being stopped out of the trade.
Your ‘trading edge’ features a higher chance of yielding a result for you if you’re not trading within the intraday noise.
The same trading edge doesn't work or produce an equivalent results on a 5 min chart compared to a Daily chart.
Commissions and spreads churn your account, therefore the more you trade the more you lose in broker platform costs. (I will mention this below)
Risk-Reward ratios aren't relative on shorter and longer time frames. Statistical average volatility across different time periods also as natural market dynamics play an enormous role during this . there's much more weight behind higher time frames than lower timeframes.
Great trades take time because the market moves slower than most of the people ever anticipate. Trading from the upper timeframes and holding trades for extended time periods will provide you with greater opportunities to ascertain trades mature into big winners. However, shorter timeframes don’t provide you with this same opportunity fairly often .

Hello, dummies
It's your old pal, Fuzzy.
As I'm sure you've all noticed, a lot of the stuff that gets posted here is - to put it delicately - fucking ridiculous. More backwards-ass shit gets posted to wallstreetbets than you'd see on a Westboro Baptist community message board. I mean, I had a look at the daily thread yesterday and..... yeesh. I know, I know. We all make like the divine Laura Dern circa 1992 on the daily and stick our hands deep into this steaming heap of shit to find the nuggets of valuable and/or hilarious information within (thanks for reading, BTW). I agree. I love it just the way it is too. That's what makes WSB great.
What I'm getting at is that a lot of the stuff that gets posted here - notwithstanding it being funny or interesting - is just... wrong. Like, fucking your cousin wrong. And to be clear, I mean the fucking your *first* cousin kinda wrong, before my Southerners in the back get all het up (simmer down, Billy Ray - I know Mabel's twice removed on your grand-sister's side). Truly, I try to let it slide. I do my bit to try and put you on the right path. Most of the time, I sleep easy no matter how badly I've seen someone explain what a bank liquidity crisis is. But out of all of those tens of thousands of misguided, autistic attempts at understanding the world of high finance, one thing gets so consistently - so *emphatically* - fucked up and misunderstood by you retards that last night I felt obligated at the end of a long work day to pull together this edition of Finance with Fuzzy just for you. It's so serious I'm not even going to make a u/pokimane gag. Have you guessed what it is yet? Here's a clue. It's in the title of the post.
That's right, friends. Today in the neighborhood we're going to talk all about hedging in financial markets - spots, swaps, collars, forwards, CDS, synthetic CDOs, all that fun shit. Don't worry; I'm going to explain what all the scary words mean and how they impact your OTM RH positions along the way.
We're going to break it down like this. (1) "What's a hedge, Fuzzy?" (2) Common Hedging Strategies and (3) All About ISDAs and Credit Default Swaps.
Before we begin. For the nerds and JV traders in the back (and anyone else who needs to hear this up front) - I am simplifying these descriptions for the purposes of this post. I am also obviously not going to try and cover every exotic form of hedge under the sun or give a detailed summation of what caused the financial crisis. If you are interested in something specific ask a question, but don't try and impress me with your Investopedia skills or technical points I didn't cover; I will just be forced to flex my years of IRL experience on you in the comments and you'll look like a big dummy.
TL;DR? Fuck you. There is no TL;DR. You've come this far already. What's a few more paragraphs? Put down the Cheetos and try to concentrate for the next 5-7 minutes. You'll learn something, and I promise I'll be gentle.
Ready? Let's get started.
1. The Tao of Risk: Hedging as a Way of Life
The simplest way to characterize what a hedge 'is' is to imagine every action having a binary outcome. One is bad, one is good. Red lines, green lines; uppie, downie. With me so far? Good. A 'hedge' is simply the employment of a strategy to mitigate the effect of your action having the wrong binary outcome. You wanted X, but you got Z! Frowny face. A hedge strategy introduces a third outcome. If you hedged against the possibility of Z happening, then you can wind up with Y instead. Not as good as X, but not as bad as Z. The technical definition I like to give my idiot juniors is as follows:
Utilization of a defensive strategy to mitigate risk, at a fraction of the cost to capital of the risk itself.
Congratulations. You just finished Hedging 101. "But Fuzzy, that's easy! I just sold a naked call against my 95% OTM put! I'm adequately hedged!". Spoiler alert: you're not (although good work on executing a collar, which I describe below). What I'm talking about here is what would be referred to as a 'perfect hedge'; a binary outcome where downside is totally mitigated by a risk management strategy. That's not how it works IRL. Pay attention; this is the tricky part.
You can't take a single position and conclude that you're adequately hedged because risks are fluid, not static. So you need to constantly adjust your position in order to maximize the value of the hedge and insure your position. You also need to consider exposure to more than one category of risk. There are micro (specific exposure) risks, and macro (trend exposure) risks, and both need to factor into the hedge calculus.
That's why, in the real world, the value of hedging depends entirely on the design of the hedging strategy itself. Here, when we say "value" of the hedge, we're not talking about cash money - we're talking about the intrinsic value of the hedge relative to the the risk profile of your underlying exposure. To achieve this, people hedge dynamically. In wallstreetbets terms, this means that as the value of your position changes, you need to change your hedges too. The idea is to efficiently and continuously distribute and rebalance risk across different states and periods, taking value from states in which the marginal cost of the hedge is low and putting it back into states where marginal cost of the hedge is high, until the shadow value of your underlying exposure is equalized across your positions. The punchline, I guess, is that one static position is a hedge in the same way that the finger paintings you make for your wife's boyfriend are art - it's technically correct, but you're only playing yourself by believing it.
Anyway. Obviously doing this as a small potatoes trader is hard but it's worth taking into account. Enough basic shit. So how does this work in markets?
2. A Hedging Taxonomy
The best place to start here is a practical question. What does a business need to hedge against? Think about the specific risk that an individual business faces. These are legion, so I'm just going to list a few of the key ones that apply to most corporates. (1) You have commodity risk for the shit you buy or the shit you use. (2) You have currency risk for the money you borrow. (3) You have rate risk on the debt you carry. (4) You have offtake risk for the shit you sell. Complicated, right? To help address the many and varied ways that shit can go wrong in a sophisticated market, smart operators like yours truly have devised a whole bundle of different instruments which can help you manage the risk. I might write about some of the more complicated ones in a later post if people are interested (CDO/CLOs, strip/stack hedges and bond swaps with option toggles come to mind) but let's stick to the basics for now.
(i) Swaps
A swap is one of the most common forms of hedge instrument, and they're used by pretty much everyone that can afford them. The language is complicated but the concept isn't, so pay attention and you'll be fine. This is the most important part of this section so it'll be the longest one.
Swaps are derivative contracts with two counterparties (before you ask, you can't trade 'em on an exchange - they're OTC instruments only). They're used to exchange one cash flow for another cash flow of equal expected value; doing this allows you to take speculative positions on certain financial prices or to alter the cash flows of existing assets or liabilities within a business. "Wait, Fuzz; slow down! What do you mean sets of cash flows?". Fear not, little autist. Ol' Fuzz has you covered.
The cash flows I'm talking about are referred to in swap-land as 'legs'. One leg is fixed - a set payment that's the same every time it gets paid - and the other is variable - it fluctuates (typically indexed off the price of the underlying risk that you are speculating on / protecting against). You set it up at the start so that they're notionally equal and the two legs net off; so at open, the swap is a zero NPV instrument. Here's where the fun starts. If the price that you based the variable leg of the swap on changes, the value of the swap will shift; the party on the wrong side of the move ponies up via the variable payment. It's a zero sum game.
I'll give you an example using the most vanilla swap around; an interest rate trade. Here's how it works. You borrow money from a bank, and they charge you a rate of interest. You lock the rate up front, because you're smart like that. But then - quelle surprise! - the rate gets better after you borrow. Now you're bagholding to the tune of, I don't know, 5 bps. Doesn't sound like much but on a billion dollar loan that's a lot of money (a classic example of the kind of 'small, deep hole' that's terrible for profits). Now, if you had a swap contract on the rate before you entered the trade, you're set; if the rate goes down, you get a payment under the swap. If it goes up, whatever payment you're making to the bank is netted off by the fact that you're borrowing at a sub-market rate. Win-win! Or, at least, Lose Less / Lose Less. That's the name of the game in hedging.
There are many different kinds of swaps, some of which are pretty exotic; but they're all different variations on the same theme. If your business has exposure to something which fluctuates in price, you trade swaps to hedge against the fluctuation. The valuation of swaps is also super interesting but I guarantee you that 99% of you won't understand it so I'm not going to try and explain it here although I encourage you to google it if you're interested.
Because they're OTC, none of them are filed publicly. Someeeeeetimes you see an ISDA (dsicussed below) but the confirms themselves (the individual swaps) are not filed. You can usually read about the hedging strategy in a 10-K, though. For what it's worth, most modern credit agreements ban speculative hedging. Top tip: This is occasionally something worth checking in credit agreements when you invest in businesses that are debt issuers - being able to do this increases the risk profile significantly and is particularly important in times of economic volatility (ctrl+f "non-speculative" in the credit agreement to be sure).
(ii) Forwards
A forward is a contract made today for the future delivery of an asset at a pre-agreed price. That's it. "But Fuzzy! That sounds just like a futures contract!". I know. Confusing, right? Just like a futures trade, forwards are generally used in commodity or forex land to protect against price fluctuations. The differences between forwards and futures are small but significant. I'm not going to go into super boring detail because I don't think many of you are commodities traders but it is still an important thing to understand even if you're just an RH jockey, so stick with me.
Just like swaps, forwards are OTC contracts - they're not publicly traded. This is distinct from futures, which are traded on exchanges (see The Ballad Of Big Dick Vick for some more color on this). In a forward, no money changes hands until the maturity date of the contract when delivery and receipt are carried out; price and quantity are locked in from day 1. As you now know having read about BDV, futures are marked to market daily, and normally people close them out with synthetic settlement using an inverse position. They're also liquid, and that makes them easier to unwind or close out in case shit goes sideways.
People use forwards when they absolutely have to get rid of the thing they made (or take delivery of the thing they need). If you're a miner, or a farmer, you use this shit to make sure that at the end of the production cycle, you can get rid of the shit you made (and you won't get fucked by someone taking cash settlement over delivery). If you're a buyer, you use them to guarantee that you'll get whatever the shit is that you'll need at a price agreed in advance. Because they're OTC, you can also exactly tailor them to the requirements of your particular circumstances.
These contracts are incredibly byzantine (and there are even crazier synthetic forwards you can see in money markets for the true degenerate fund managers). In my experience, only Texan oilfield magnates, commodities traders, and the weirdo forex crowd fuck with them. I (i) do not own a 10 gallon hat or a novelty size belt buckle (ii) do not wake up in the middle of the night freaking out about the price of pork fat and (iii) love greenbacks too much to care about other countries' monopoly money, so I don't fuck with them.
(iii) Collars
No, not the kind your wife is encouraging you to wear try out to 'spice things up' in the bedroom during quarantine. Collars are actually the hedging strategy most applicable to WSB. Collars deal with options! Hooray!
To execute a basic collar (also called a wrapper by tea-drinking Brits and people from the Antipodes), you buy an out of the money put while simultaneously writing a covered call on the same equity. The put protects your position against price drops and writing the call produces income that offsets the put premium. Doing this limits your tendies (you can only profit up to the strike price of the call) but also writes down your risk. If you screen large volume trades with a VOL/OI of more than 3 or 4x (and they're not bullshit biotech stocks), you can sometimes see these being constructed in real time as hedge funds protect themselves on their shorts.
(3) All About ISDAs, CDS and Synthetic CDOs
You may have heard about the mythical ISDA. Much like an indenture (discussed in my post on $F), it's a magic legal machine that lets you build swaps via trade confirms with a willing counterparty. They are very complicated legal documents and you need to be a true expert to fuck with them. Fortunately, I am, so I do. They're made of two parts; a Master (which is a form agreement that's always the same) and a Schedule (which amends the Master to include your specific terms). They are also the engine behind just about every major credit crunch of the last 10+ years.
First - a brief explainer. An ISDA is a not in and of itself a hedge - it's an umbrella contract that governs the terms of your swaps, which you use to construct your hedge position. You can trade commodities, forex, rates, whatever, all under the same ISDA.
Let me explain. Remember when we talked about swaps? Right. So. You can trade swaps on just about anything. In the late 90s and early 2000s, people had the smart idea of using other people's debt and or credit ratings as the variable leg of swap documentation. These are called credit default swaps. I was actually starting out at a bank during this time and, I gotta tell you, the only thing I can compare people's enthusiasm for this shit to was that moment in your early teens when you discover jerking off. Except, unlike your bathroom bound shame sessions to Mom's Sears catalogue, every single person you know felt that way too; and they're all doing it at once. It was a fiscal circlejerk of epic proportions, and the financial crisis was the inevitable bukkake finish. WSB autism is absolutely no comparison for the enthusiasm people had during this time for lighting each other's money on fire.
Here's how it works. You pick a company. Any company. Maybe even your own! And then you write a swap. In the swap, you define "Credit Event" with respect to that company's debt as the variable leg . And you write in... whatever you want. A ratings downgrade, default under the docs, failure to meet a leverage ratio or FCCR for a certain testing period... whatever. Now, this started out as a hedge position, just like we discussed above. The purest of intentions, of course. But then people realized - if bad shit happens, you make money. And banks... don't like calling in loans or forcing bankruptcies. Can you smell what the moral hazard is cooking?
Enter synthetic CDOs. CDOs are basically pools of asset backed securities that invest in debt (loans or bonds). They've been around for a minute but they got famous in the 2000s because a shitload of them containing subprime mortgage debt went belly up in 2008. This got a lot of publicity because a lot of sad looking rednecks got foreclosed on and were interviewed on CNBC. "OH!", the people cried. "Look at those big bad bankers buying up subprime loans! They caused this!". Wrong answer, America. The debt wasn't the problem. What a lot of people don't realize is that the real meat of the problem was not in regular way CDOs investing in bundles of shit mortgage debts in synthetic CDOs investing in CDS predicated on that debt. They're synthetic because they don't have a stake in the actual underlying debt; just the instruments riding on the coattails. The reason these are so popular (and remain so) is that smart structured attorneys and bankers like your faithful correspondent realized that an even more profitable and efficient way of building high yield products with limited downside was investing in instruments that profit from failure of debt and in instruments that rely on that debt and then hedging that exposure with other CDS instruments in paired trades, and on and on up the chain. The problem with doing this was that everyone wound up exposed to everybody else's books as a result, and when one went tits up, everybody did. Hence, recession, Basel III, etc. Thanks, Obama.
Heavy investment in CDS can also have a warping effect on the price of debt (something else that happened during the pre-financial crisis years and is starting to happen again now). This happens in three different ways. (1) Investors who previously were long on the debt hedge their position by selling CDS protection on the underlying, putting downward pressure on the debt price. (2) Investors who previously shorted the debt switch to buying CDS protection because the relatively illiquid debt (partic. when its a bond) trades at a discount below par compared to the CDS. The resulting reduction in short selling puts upward pressure on the bond price. (3) The delta in price and actual value of the debt tempts some investors to become NBTs (neg basis traders) who long the debt and purchase CDS protection. If traders can't take leverage, nothing happens to the price of the debt. If basis traders can take leverage (which is nearly always the case because they're holding a hedged position), they can push up or depress the debt price, goosing swap premiums etc. Anyway. Enough technical details.
I could keep going. This is a fascinating topic that is very poorly understood and explained, mainly because the people that caused it all still work on the street and use the same tactics today (it's also terribly taught at business schools because none of the teachers were actually around to see how this played out live). But it relates to the topic of today's lesson, so I thought I'd include it here.
Work depending, I'll be back next week with a covenant breakdown. Most upvoted ticker gets the post.
*EDIT 1\* In a total blowout, $PLAY won. So it's D&B time next week. Post will drop Monday at market open.

Hi, I'm usually a lurker on Reddit but I created this throwaway account to ask for any advice and also warn people of this scam.
I'm 99% sure my uncle fell into what I think is very clearly a Forex scam. Now our family is in deep financial troubles. We will need to liquidate all of our assets (including our home, which we live together) to pay off our debts. How it happened:
About a year ago, my uncle is approached on LinkedIn by a women claiming to know the secrets to Forex trading. She claims to be from Hong Kong and sends him several screenshots of her very successful trade and claims she makes millions and also lives an incredibly lavish lifestyle. She tells my uncle to install a 3rd party version of MetaTrader4 to get started. Of course, this gets his attention and he downloads the app and starts taking her advice and plays with the paper money. He makes some really great gains on paper and eventually she pushes him to put in real money.
He then comes to me at the beginning to ask my opinion of this situation.
So I did some initial research and I could not find ANY information about this woman's company and her existence. She literally has less than 10 connections on LinkedIn. I also noted that it was sketchy to download a 3rd party version of this app when a version of it already exists in the App Store. I also reversed image searched her profile pictures but I wasn't able to get any concrete proof she was a scammer.
I tell him that this is most likely a scam based on what I found and his paper money gains on Forex are incredulous and that even pros don't make that much money (He and I have some retail experience trading equities, so we are familiar with the basics).
I don't want him feeling down so I let him know that if he wants to try it maybe he should put in money that he can afford to lose...
Come about half a year later, my uncle confesses that he has all of his savings and on MARGIN into this "forex broker" and that he has been unable to withdraw any money from his account. Each time he doubles his money through trading, he would make another wire transfer to add money to this trading account.
He also tells me each time he tried withdrawing money, the broker requires a lump sum wire transfer of 100k to ensure the right channels are "secured" for him to transfer the money without being targeted by something among the likes of a Hong Kong Security Law. Of course, he gets convinced to make the wire transfer thinking that the gains he makes from the trades offsets this loss...
I should mention that when he calls the "head trader" at this Hong Kong forex firm, it's a young man who speaks Mandarin..
Also I should mention each wire deposit goes to a different account.
Sorry if my writing and organization isn't the best... honestly I am still so shook from writing this... I've convinced my uncle that he should not expect to get any money back from these guys. Our current financial situation is pretty f**ked as I said earlier and we will lose our homes for this. Do you guys have any advice or paths forward we should take? I'm thinking of taking this to a higher authority in Hong Kong but also we don't want to scare the scammer away. We really don't have anything on this scammer as he communicates with us through WeChat. He never answers our calls, and only calls us when we try to withdraw the money.
I appreciate any advice you guys could give me, and I'll be able to answer any question as I may have missed a couple details..

Hi, I'm usually a lurker on Reddit but I created this throwaway account to ask for any advice and also warn people of this scam.
I'm 99% sure my uncle fell into what I think is very clearly a Forex scam. Now our family is in deep financial troubles. We will need to liquidate all of our assets (including our home, which we live together) to pay off our debts. How it happened:
About a year ago, my uncle is approached on LinkedIn by a women claiming to know the secrets to Forex trading. She claims to be from Hong Kong and sends him several screenshots of her very successful trade and claims she makes millions and also lives an incredibly lavish lifestyle. She tells my uncle to install a 3rd party version of MetaTrader4 to get started. Of course, this gets his attention and he downloads the app and starts taking her advice and plays with the paper money. He makes some really great gains on paper and eventually she pushes him to put in real money.
He then comes to me at the beginning to ask my opinion of this situation.
So I did some initial research and I could not find ANY information about this woman's company and her existence. She literally has less than 10 connections on LinkedIn. I also noted that it was sketchy to download a 3rd party version of this app when a version of it already exists in the App Store. I also reversed image searched her profile pictures but I wasn't able to get any concrete proof she was a scammer.
I tell him that this is most likely a scam based on what I found and his paper money gains on Forex are incredulous and that even pros don't make that much money (He and I have some retail experience trading equities, so we are familiar with the basics).
I don't want him feeling down so I let him know that if he wants to try it maybe he should put in money that he can afford to lose...
Come about half a year later, my uncle confesses that he has all of his savings and on MARGIN into this "forex broker" and that he has been unable to withdraw any money from his account. Each time he doubles his money through trading, he would make another wire transfer to add money to this trading account.
He also tells me each time he tried withdrawing money, the broker requires a lump sum wire transfer of 100k to ensure the right channels are "secured" for him to transfer the money without being targeted by something among the likes of a Hong Kong Security Law. Of course, he gets convinced to make the wire transfer thinking that the gains he makes from the trades offsets this loss...
I should mention that when he calls the "head trader" at this Hong Kong forex firm, it's a young man who speaks Mandarin..
Also I should mention each wire deposit goes to a different account.
Sorry if my writing and organization isn't the best... honestly I am still so shook from writing this... I've convinced my uncle that he should not expect to get any money back from these guys. Our current financial situation is pretty f**ked as I said earlier and we will lose our homes for this. Do you guys have any advice or paths forward we should take? I'm thinking of taking this to a higher authority in Hong Kong but also we don't want to scare the scammer away. We really don't have anything on this scammer as he communicates with us through WeChat. He never answers our calls, and only calls us when we try to withdraw the money.
I appreciate any advice you guys could give me, and I'll be able to answer any question as I may have missed a couple details..