Investing Experts: What do you make of this? Crash in September?

[SAdams]

First, read this thread: http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticke...-www?post=4669

Dont' skip to the end, because they start talking about some other action later on and it might confuse you. Pages 1-7 has the important info relevant to this thread, but there is also some interesting stuff on the pages after that, which we can also discuss.

This is the gist of what they are saying in pages 1-7:

On Wednesday August 22, 2007 someone essentially "bet" almost 2 billion dollars that the stock market would crash by 30+% in the next 3-4 weeks.

They don't know who wrote the calls, but it's obviously someone with a lot of money.

They think that someone must have some inside info or they wouldn't be dumb enough to put that much money on the line.

Some speculate that it could even be terrorist related, such as similar to what happened before 9-11 and the airlines.

I really don't know much about investing and the lingo they use is not something I'm familiar with, so I thought I'd post here and see what you guys think.

Could this be a precursor to a terrorist attack?

Do you think this is enough to warrant moving my positions in my 401k and Roth into money market funds? At least for the next month or two to see what plays out?

[American Patriot]

I read it, I dont know what they are talking about. I will say the market is nothing more than virtual money and it can be manipulated, and has been. If a crash occurs its ONLY because people panic.

Good God, if they leave their damned money alone, nothing will happen

[Luke]

What is this money of which you speak?

I seriously am concerned as everyday I watch my deferred comp account lose money. I am begining to think I would be better off taking it all out of the stock market, heading to Vegas, and bet it all on Black 23!

Of course I understand that the stock market is a long term investment, and in the long run better odds than Vegas.

[Phil Fiord]

Luke, There are options to invest or trade aside from stocks. Bonds, commodities, or even currency exhange rates. All these seem to be more able to produce a profit better than stocks imo.

[ExplodedMind]

The four weeks is up on Wednesday. Somebody is about 2 days away from losing $2 billion. Actually, they have already lost it. If we had an event calamitous enough to drop the market 30% in a matter of days (probably terror attack), the market would probably be closed for days anyway. If the markets stayed open, trading curbs would slow losses enough to ensure that we didn't lose 30% in two or three trading days.

This play was probably a hedge stacked against an array of bullish bets, and not a bet on a terror attack. There are many such complicated trading schemes that have been around for a long time. One is called an Iron Butterfly. Yep, that's where the name came from.

EM