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I forgot to include a story. https://x.com/NeilJacobs/status/1714971755331170617?s=20 here is Tudor Jones on the day of the crash. He came into Black Monday short S+P futures, as many as his account could hold basically. On Tuesday morning, he called his broker on the floor of the CME. The guy was a very eccentric guy. He told his broker he wanted out of every single short by the end of the day. His broker said okay-and Jones said, you can take your time if you want. Go as you see fit.

The market opened that day and on one side of the S+P pit it was offered 100 handles off from the other side of the pit which was bid. The broker covered all the shorts at the low of the day.

After the close, Tudor sent a limo to the broker. They drove him to a Mercedes dealer. They told him to buy whichever one he wanted. He did, and unfortunately I cannot remember the vanity license plate he put on it....others might be able to fill in that blank if they read this.

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Oct 22, 2023·edited Oct 22, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

Interestingly, according to Peter Boorish who was PJT's "right hand man", Tudor made more money on the Bond longs they entered on Black Monday than their S&P shorts. Boorish explained that due to the volatility that month in Spoos, their Bond position was much bigger than their short in SP. As you may remember Jeff, while ED didn't have price limits, Bonds were 3pts and when you guys opened up 300-400 higher, Bond option synthetics were 10 points higher from Monday's close!

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That was crazy!!! I remember bonds opening limit up.....and you couldn't sell them

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Oct 22, 2023·edited Oct 22, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

Jeff, like you, I was a clerk working for a market maker at the CBOE that day too.

I worked off the floor for most of my time as a clerk, but that day I went down to the floor a lot, spending some time in the OEX pit.

It was wild.

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Oct 22, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

All I can add is "AMEN"! The government at all levels needs to be reigned in and get the hell out of the way of people who will be productive if just given the opportunity. Also quit spending money funding the endless wars.

I don't think the Fed will allow another Black Monday to ever happen. Instead they are focused on stealing us blind with non-stop money printing.

Your point about interest rates is spot on. Interest rates are normal now, they were out of whack for the last 15 years. We are going to pay a high price as a society for all the central planning shenanigans.

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It's not as if they will allow it. There are circuit breakers in place etc. But, we had the Flash Crash, remember?

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Oct 23, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

Great observations Mr Carter!

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Oct 23, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

Good article. I never knew you worked for Roger. I was at the First Options desk at the time and we had far and away the most Euro Dollar Options traders clearing our firm, on a day when volatility went from ~13% to ~38% overnight LOL and if you'll recall, we were then owned by Continental Bank, who was ready to blow out the locals positions before we called the bank and told them they're out of their f****** minds😆 just finance the positions and wait.

RJS(among quite a few others that you would know from that day), if I recall correctly, had a huge short vol position & was not in a real good mood that day😄

When you think about it, it really was a cool thing to be a part of history in the making.

Some day you should ask the Bear Stearns people about Head Bond trader Bill in NY calling Annie at the Bear Stearns desk and telling her to just start buying front month euros and when she asked him how many, he replied:"Just keep buying until they start laughing at you".

Yes, really, you can call her and ask her and she'll remember the story, I guarantee you.

He made an absurd amount of money that day.

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Oct 23, 2023·edited Oct 23, 2023Author

RJS, BIC, Jeff Goldman...think Bruce Goldman might have cleared there....001. GO and BLG did really well that day as I recall. I heard Annie had passed but maybe it was her husband?? Can't remember. I took on 045 exactly one time....I can't remember how many spreads I had on after that but it took a few days to get out of them....She was a trip. Especially on Fridays after the close.

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Oct 22, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

I am ready for a buying opportunity!

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Opex was Friday, now see how November action kicks off... looking like lots of shorts to squeeze if things dont escalate overseas...

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Oct 23, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

The 200 day reference point can be a biggie. Bounced big last time around, and here we are again!

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for sure the charts don't look great.

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I was in high school. I still remember it. One typo - LTCM. I do have to say, i was thinking along the ways of CDR Salamander the weekend when i heard the news about the hamas attacks. Linebacker III. Of course i am prejudiced. Deal. I am hearing the repo market is having issues. Not good. A good 4 year span with debt held under $100 bb per year would be just the ticket right about now. I am of the belief you need a little debt issuance - oil to keep the market lubricated. Other than that, stop printing.

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Printing and perhaps stop unequally weighting the indicies, lets have the dogs in there as well. To few companies driving up our indicies. When you take out stock buybacks over the last 20 years I think you see a lot less uptick and over-all interest in the markets. The money creation binge has made things like Theranos, We Work, Pets.com, Solyndra, LTCM, et al possible.

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Yeah, yeah, behind again.

Economists are very good at predicting the past. Present and Future, not so much.

I read a story about William Safire had a column in the NYT's, when it was worth reading. Around the end of the year or beginning of the New Year he would make predictions on a bunch of different things. Who would win the Pulitzer, the best novel of the coming year, who would win the Oscars, political predictions, etc. At the end of the year he would make new predictions but never tallied his old ones. After he died someone looked back at his columns to see how his predictions turned out. Supposedly the thing he as the best at was predicting the Oscar winners and he was at least 75% wrong on most things. Have no idea if that is true or not.

30 For 30 did a show on Jimmy the Greek after he died. They conclude that he really wasn't any better then other Las Vegas oddsmakers. But he was very good at touting his own horn when he was correct.

If you have a friend who is always telling your who will win some sporting event, The Super Bowl, the World Series, the World Cup, etc and they are wrong most of the time you would probably stop listening to them. Or if smart bet on the other team. Ditto stocks. If your Financial Advisor is always giving you the wrong advice you'd find someone else. Or maybe short whatever they are touting. They might be right occasionally but over the long run you will lose money.

Ditto with everything else. If all of the Climate Change predictions are wrong that is telling your something. If all the predictions about Electric Cars are wrong, that is telling you something. People get caught up in the now and don't look at the back when or they just believe. And the media never seems ask these prophets why they seem to never get it right.

The Cult that you don't recognize as a Cult is the Cult you are in.

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The exponential growth of taxes, regulation and don't forget those glorious "unconstiutional" unelected government agencies that have turned D.C. into the city it has become, have created a highly unstable quasi socialist republic. The layers that need to be peeled back are numerous and deep rooted. I looks at our current situation actually starting with the Dot.com crash, as the advent of easy money under droop dog, AKA Alan Greenspan is the 2nd leg of this inflationary approach to creating growth. For me going officially off the gold standard, which really was done by FDR and Nixon just put the last singular nail in the coffin during the year of my birth, 1971. I was in high school when Black Friday happened, I remember it well as I was a Sophomore in my Dad's third world history class when word came around about what was going on. I grew up on the west coast so the time difference played into this.

Israel and the whole "Palestinian"/Arab/Muslim thing has been a topic around my dinner table growing up from the time I was very little. I think that the reality of the history of that region has simply been chosen by many of a certain political bent to be either ignored and or better yet, historicized. What is going on and what has gone on is rather cut and dry, not a lot of to discuss unless you perfer to put your fingers in your ears and yell LA LA LA continually so you don't have to hear the facts.

You are so spot on about who creates inflation. That is the right equation, M1, M2, M3, M4 et al are way off base often on exactly how much "money" is out there sloshing around. Mises.org often runs great articles on this topic. Our money is now no better than monopoly money.

Regulatory growth is the lifeblood of politicians in the United States. This became such with FDR who took our government and decided to take us in a completely different direction from our constitutional foundation. He was not the first to try this of course, Wilson did a fair amount of this as did TR. If we unwound every unconstiutional and expensive program and agency that eminates from D.C. there would be profoundly positive effect on the fortunes and the future of our country. Things like Welfare need to be unwound, slowly, but unwound none the less. Ten percent reduction in head count for all agencies in D.C. and once again all disagreements on such topics as polution, water etc between regions, states, counties will go before the supreme court instead of the court hearing things like was a fast food chain responsible for their coffee being too hot?

An interesting take on this, at our founding through 1849 is a book I just got donee listening too entitled: Cronyism: Liberty Verse Power in Early America 1607-1849. While there are some things I think the author either leaves out or conviently leaves out, a lot of interesting points made.

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Jeff, thanks for the memories of 1987. I was on the CBOT floor as an IDEM futures trader for the whole day on that Monday. Never made a trade. Fortunes were made and lost, and a single bad trade could wipe out a small trader like me. I turned my badge around and stood there just watching. We were the only market that stayed open so I saw the actual low occur as the Eastman Dillon broker completed a huge liquidation order. Selling suddenly dried up and the pit got very quiet.

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you were not the only trader that turned his badge around that day

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Oct 24, 2023·edited Oct 24, 2023

Yes, BIC and both of the Goldman boys were short vol and that was a fascinating week to say the least hahaha

Annie's husband Dave passed away sometime in the past few years and he was one of our co-workers at the Bear Stearns desk in the 90s and a great guy ,an absolutely great guy. Last I had heard he had been offered a job by one of our London traders Susan and was on an open arb line with her. I saw Annie at the wake and we spent a couple hours together and it was a difficult thing, because we spent almost a decade together and yes, after the close she was pretty wild. We had a few outstanding dinners where FO used to take us out once or twice a year to a fine dining establishment like Le Francais or Carlos or a place like that, and I loved looking at her cheeks get red and blushed as she was getting buzzed and she was a lot of fun.

If you read the book House of Cards, about the fall of Bear, it mentions Tom Marano in there, who was our head of MBS, and we all had a direct line to him.

It was an incredible time to be with that firm in the late1990s especially, because we were tasked with blowing out the LT position on a give up basis to Goldman and a few others so that not everybody would know it was the too big to fail blow out LOL it was the ultimate irony that when I was at GNP at the Board of Trade and bond options back in the early eighties, I used to do a ton of bond option business for John Meriwether when he was at Solomon, for his personal account. Those were very wild days back in the 30 years during the Reagan era, it was so much fun.

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Referencing @leadlagreport? Interesting.

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And warmonger Trump was in favor of invading Mexico. Any R policy proposals are as deep as 30 second TV spot. Syphillis vs gonorrhea ‘24.

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that is a totally irresponsible comment. Trump never said to "invade" Mexico-especially the way people think of invasion. He did say we should decapitate and destroy the drug cartels-and the Mexican govt would probably be good with that. Building a wall at the southern Mexico border might not be a bad idea either.

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I'm for better border security. Neither party is willing to compromise at all and haven't been willing for many years. So we get the status quo. Pretty sure the Mexicans would view even a limited action against cartels as an invasion. And to be fair it appears some of the other candidates, including DeSantis, might be for it too. It's nuts. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/donald-trump-mexico-military-cartels-war-on-drugs-1234705804/

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It's not an invasion. To categorize it as such is wrong. Rolling Stone also is far left and will skew the news. What it sounds like is to work with the Mexican govt to decapitate the cartels.

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Oct 22, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter

"Warmonger Trump"? That's funny. I'm a results man, and although I'm critical of Trump on a number of fronts, that's not one of them.

No wars or conflicts started or escalated during his 4 year term.

Biden? Two major wars underway as we speak, and an American presence that seems nothing but impotent and helpless. It is also quite possible that a third major war will start before Biden is done (China/Taiwan).

I get it -- you hate Trump. But please don't distort the record.

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They're his ideas, not mine. Bombing/invading the US's largest trading partner doesn't seem like the smartest idea. And does seem like warmongering. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/us/politics/trump-mexico-cartels-republican.html

Biden's foreign policy is not great, but he's not horrible either. In different ways, but not unlike Trump. Bush and Obama both made large messes. Both current wars are due to issues that simmered for many years. The perceived American weakness is a real issue. But the Rs today are just as clueless as the Ds.

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don't quote the NY Times when you want to quote Trump.

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One of the reporters, Haberman, is on Trump's speed dial for dishing details.

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doesn't matter. NYT isn't credible. Especially when it comes to Trump.

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Dude, so which is it? Invading or bombing Mexico? Haha, give me a break. You lefties sure love your bubbles and like to call names and fantasize -- always love a NYT link share to shape everyone up. While,...under the current administration, things have gone to complete and utter dog shit. BUT, not their fault. Haha.

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Trump proposed bombing while president (according to Esper) and has invasion on the table as part of the campaign (as reported by multiple sources including his favorite NYT reporter Haberman). Not sure why you think I'm a lefty.

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Every time someone makes an outlandish claim about Trump it turns up false. Every single time. I get it that you have TDS. I get it that Trump isn't a soft fluffy guy and he often says crazy stuff. But, he had mostly decent policy and his instincts were correct.

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I believe most of the on the record statements by his former staff. I have exactly zero TDS. Whatever he did as president in the past is the past. Like most presidents he got a few things right. The chaos today in the House is one of his legacies. His post-presidency actions make him completely unqualified for another term. The people who are deranged are the MAGA cult members who would literally still support him if he shot someone on 5th Avenue. In Truth Social format:

"TRUMP is GUILTY of ESPIONAGE. LOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS. TRUMP gives MILITARY SECRETS to FOREIGNERS and CANNOT HAVE ACCESS AGAIN".

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It was recalcitrant. Why? Because of strategy and timing. It's a split house. You can make political points on social media all you want but you have to get legislation passed. You don't get it passed by getting rid of a Speaker that was basically doing a decent job.

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Okay, let's be realistic. How many R and D? 221-212 with 2 vacant https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown Of the R, how many are RINO?

Now that we have our facts straight, who is going to go super hard line on the debt ceiling with a left wing press megaphone etc, and not pass a debt ceiling CR? You gonna get other super conservative stuff passed? No. You know what you had....investigations in to Biden etc. You can't rule without power. You can't elect more real conservatives without power. You can't primary RINOs without power. Dems have done a great job getting rid of moderates and electing socialists.

There is what you want, and then there is the strategy to get there.

The ultimate reason for the crash wasn't inflation. Inflation was licked by then. It was the Trade Deficit.....not the federal deficit.

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