If I had to "sell short" one country or city-state in the world today, it would be Dubai.
That's me, December 2007. I thank the excellent John Chilton for the pointer.
Here are previous installments in the series.
Prophets of the MarginalRevolution
Previous post: Time Travel with Doctor Who
Next post: Assorted links
Then why didn’t you? CDS on Dubai’s government-sponsored companies is freely-traded…
If you had shorted at that time, would you have actually made money?
Well, CDS usually have 5 year expiries, so the contract would still be alive. I don’t know where to get a free quote on off-the-run CDS. Anybody?
MattM,
Retail investors can’t buy CDSs, and there is no suitable ETF for shorting Dubai. And I very much doubt that Tyler is wealthy enough to be a “qualified investor”; he spends way too much on food, books and travel.
To me, when an expert points out a correct prediction they made, I’m unimpressed. But when they point out a wrong prediction they made, I am sometimes impressed. Perhaps this is because one assumes that one is more likely to highlight an unusual case.
Yancy Ward said, “If you had shorted at that time, would you have actually made money?”
I second this question. Selling it short in late 2008 would be one thing, but selling it short in 2007 might not have made you money in retrospect. I’d like to see some numbers about whether or not that actually would have been a good call.
You know, to compute your total accuracy, you have to include all the nice things you said about bailouts and stimulus packages…
The Big Mac index said Iceland.
But its very very hard for retain investors to do the important trades. The legal system is designed to keep them out.
erm, dubai is not a country.
Comments on this entry are closed.