Quote:
Originally Posted by worth
- Large put options on American Airlines and United Airlines weeks before the attacks (Link)
|
$2.5 Million for a few investors on a few trades only suggests that small-time traders were either tipped off about the attacks (Maybe someone connected to Al Queda), or not related at all to the attacks. The only thing that's unusual is the unclaimed part. $2.5 million isn't a lot of money when we're talking the derivatives market. I'd imagine that there's thousands of traders raking in that on a daily basis. With the amount of leverage available to an options trader it only would have required money in the tens to a hundred of thousand or so (Wow big spenders, must have been really high up in the government to afford that cash outlay, so therefore it's clearly connected government types making these trades!
)to buy the put options up front required to make that return. I bet there were a number of put options bought in the preceding days on legitimate trades. Being bearish on airline stocks after the tech bubble burst would have hardly been an outlandish investment strategy.