PowerOptions WeBlog

As expected with the coming of the summer months, oil prices have surged over the last couple of weeks from $40 to $60. Fueled by a slew of recent economic data which points to an easing of the recession, investors have been snapping up oil stocks as well as increasing their trade positions in the [...]

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is proposing requirements that will improve the transparency of over the counter derivatives trading on instruments such as interest rate and credit default swaps. Geithner calls for electronic execution of trades to replace the current system, which mostly involves telephone orders. The goal is to make price information on these derivatives [...]

Gillian Tett’s new book, “Fool’s Gold”, is a refreshing and innovative approach to the failings of financial institutions, in that she convincingly ties such failings to the personalities and tribal behavioral patterns of the bankers and economists who putatively cause them. As a trained anthropologist, Tett is well qualified to examine tribal behavior, and her [...]

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “Civilian air-traffic computer networks have been penetrated multiple times in recent years”. The article goes on the describe a disturbing incident in which hackers stole a network administrator’s password and used it to install malicious code on air traffic control computers. Security experts have identified [...]

Wouldn’t it be nice to make money, even if the stock market didn’t go up or down? Well, there’s a way to do it and it’s called the Iron Condor. An iron condor is a stock options strategy and a lot of investors eyes start to glaze over when they hear stock options, [...]

For owners of construction stocks, the fallout of the subprime lending crisis has hit home in a big way. With prospective homeowners finding it difficult to obtain credit, this is not a good time to be in the process of selling new homes. Business construction has slowed too, as more companies are cutting back instead [...]

On April 22nd, the U.S. Energy Departmentannounced that it will spend $6 billion to clean up nuclear weapons facilities dating back to the Cold-War era. This endeavor is part of Barrack Obama’s stimulus package, and more than half of the money is going toward clean up in South Carolina and Washington. In total, twelve states [...]

We live in an age and environment when, no matter what threat we face, there are organizations that stand to benefit. The current swine flu outbreak (more scientifically known as H1N1) is no exception. Several large international companies are well placed to gain from what is now being referred to as a pandemic. The two [...]