According to the link Topper Harley provided (thanks), Ospraie owned 700,000 shares of ACI, 0.486% of outstanding shares. It traded 13,680,000 today.

Another example: they own 3,000,000 shares (9.8% of outstanding shares) of Len.B shares. It traded 100,000 shares and was up today.

It was simply a case of huge drop in oil -> huge drop in commodities. Besides, they would have started liquidating before today.

Thanks! I don’t have time to analyze the list tonight, but I’m sure some of the participants of this blog will.

I did notice that they were holding Arch Coal (ACI) which did indeed get slaughtered today, down 14%. I guess if you want to play these you would have to figure it of Ospraie was done barfing. If not, then you could short. If so, maybe play them for an oversold bounce.

Matt

http://www.j3sg.com/Reports/Stock-Insider/Generate-Institution-Portfolio.php?DV=yes&institutionid=5295

Like Cramer said at the end of his show, it was probably Ospraie contributing to the selling today. But Cramer thinks Ospraie caused all the selling, which is dumb because the market peaked right at 10am after the ISM number was released.

Now we have wonder if Ospraie is done blowing up. If anybody knows what their holdings were, please post. We might also be able to guess what Ospraie might continue selling tomorrow based on what were the big percentage losers today. Guesses anybody?

Matt

Tomorrow, it looks like Ambac (up 10%) vs. Lehman (down 5%) for XLF.

Live from Cramer: the morning rally was the real deal, the drop was the head fake. His reasoning is because we aren’t in a recession. Housing (hgx) and banking (bkx) were up today, which is the real story. Has anybody else ever read that the morning action is more significant than the closing action? If housing and banks go down and everything else (including the indexes) go up tomorrow, that would be sweet.

OK, I see what you mean. My brokers probably have the same options under a different symbol.

Matt

quite the interesting trading day…i’m still holding an allo of 9 % to QID and a smidge of SKF…

gold stocks are cheaper, if anyone wants ‘em -g-

That sounds like a good plan.

The reason why I mentioned futures is that they are much more leveraged than the double ETF’s that you are doing so well with. Imagine that instead of just double ETF’s, you also had a 5-fold or 10-fold ETF.

Matt

I’ve never traded futures. My broker (USAA) doesn’t have futures trading to my knowledge.

I have been entertaining the idea of FOREX though. I had a practice account a couple of years ago and did very well. I need to look into that again.

I don’t do options either. That’s another area I need to learn more about. My broker will allow me to buy calls and puts and covered calls. I’ve been studying them via the Internet.

My main objective is to find out how to put almost all my funds to work all of the time instead of simply using some to day-trade. I just think of the missed opportunity of not using all of my funds. I don’t want to do it by increasing the amount of my trades, that would violate my current risk management. And I can’t trade too many stocks at once until I get my trading workstation expanded (more monitors, etc.). I just added a new computer and additional monitor the last 6 months. That has helped.

Years ago, when my funds were in a 401K, I used to go all or nothing with the swing trades. I doubled my funds in about two years (there were some days I LOST $10,000!). Now that I’m in an IRA I’m more conservative. Although I shouldn’t be.

So, I figure I need to be able to analyze a “bigger picture” in order to use the bulk of my funds. Once I do that, I’ll be well on my way to being more of a trader-investor.

Thanks