Duck and Cover
The carnage in the market might have you under your desk...we just crawled out ourselves.
For better or worse, it would seem that we are stuck with both John Thain and the Chinese. But don’t blame them if you lost money...and don’t expect them to go away either.
We flagged a small deal a few weeks ago that featured a former state-owned Chinese company doing a reverse merger into a shell...and applying for listing here in the U.S.
Noteworthy? Maybe not, but a large U.S. bank made a private equity investment here, through an affiliate, for the first time. You have to do some sleuthing to figure out who.
WUHAN, China, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire/—United National Film Corporation ("UNFC") (OTC Bulletin Board: UNTF.OB - News) announced today the closing of a share exchange transaction which resulted in the parent company of Wuhan Blower Co., Ltd., a manufacturing company located in the People’s Republic of China, going public by succeeding to UNFC’s public company status. UNFC will change its name to Wuhan General Group (China), Inc. and intends to apply for listing on NASDAQ in the near future. UNFC’s shares are currently listed on the Over- the-Counter Bulletin Board ("OTCBB") under the symbol “UNTF.OB”. . PRN
subsequent 8-K filing
This is a very thin, speculative stock. We don’t own it...and have no plans to. Are there more of these deals coming? Probably.
We are in bed with the Chinese. They might make convenient scapegoats however. We can round up the usual suspects each time the market sells off.
Speaking of media darlings, the VIX is having its coming out party this week...it earned a spot in our toolkit long ago. Check out this piece of advice...after you bookmark the site:
* VIX options are *very* difficult to play because…
* their prices are a function of VIX futures prices, not the underlying VIX prices—so often the VIX moves a substantial amount in the direction you want, but the call or put moves a lot less or in the opposite direction because the futures expectations change much more slowly than the ‘spot’ VIX price
* implied volatility in the VIX tends to be extremely high even in relatively placid markets, so swimming upstream faster than time decay can often be harder than it appears
* if you must play VIX options, consider hedging your bets with some bear call spreads instead of or in addition to buying some puts outright. VIXandmoreblog
We are heading back to the bunker
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The content contained in this blog represents the opinions of underthecounter. This commentary in no way constitutes a solicitation of business or investment advice. It is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author. Underthecounter has no positions in securities mentioned above.
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