“Crash the Euro” and Profit with a 5-Letter Code

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | September 14, 2009 10:01 am

This ad is from Justice Litle, who edits the Macro Trader[1] newsletter. I’m more of a micro-trader myself, but I’ve had a lot of questions on this one, and I keep seeing it cycle through my mailbox with that October 7 deadline, so I thought I’d take a look.

Here’s the promise in a quote from Justice Litle:

“Before October 7th, four men will make $53 billion crashing the euro[2]…

“And this 5-letter code* could make YOU $100,000 when they do it.”

Litle goes on to paint a picture that essentially shows a repeat of “Black Wednesday” coming — that’s the day back in 1992 that George Soros[3] famously made a billion dollars in a bear attach on the British Pound[4], joining with other large speculators to short it so heavily that it crashed.

It did, of course, have reasons to crash, too — the theory here is that when a currency becomes weak, and it starts to look like it’s going to falter, a concerted effort from large short sellers can take it down quickly … with profitable results for you, if you’re willing to sign up for Litle’s $795 subscription. It is, of course, “strictly limited” to 1,000 people, but somehow they manage to have not quite reached that number yet, so they’re still shilling like crazy.

Why limit it to 1,000 people?

“You see, the play I’m going to recommend in “Crash and Earn: How to Score $100,000 as the Euro Gets Sacked” isn’t as anonymous as currency trading.

“Nor is it as vast in scope as a blue chip stock investment, where thousands enter and exit positions on any given day…

“It’s a small, sensitive play — in a market with a lot of eyes on it, 24/7.

“And for savvy traders (like hedge fund managers), there are ways of detecting when a sizable number make the same play in this market at the same time… ”

Litle goes through several other examples involving Soros and some of the other huge macro traders in the investing world, largely hedge fund honchos — “Macro” just means that they’re making bets on big directional shifts in the global economy, not betting on particular companies or even, much of the time, on particular sectors.

His big reasons for speculating that this “attack of the billionaire” will happen by October 7th are …

“REASON #1: CONDITIONS — It’s no state secret that the European economy is faltering on many levels. But few truly realize how bleak the near future looks in Euro-land. According to the International Monetary Fund, the 16 EU-member countries that use the euro as currency (called the Eurozone) will contract by 4.8% in 2009.”

So basically, that’s half again as bad as the US recession. And he goes on to essentially say that the European Central Bank has been just as loose as the Federal Reserve and other banks, they just haven’t been open about it.

“REASON #2: RHETORIC — The European Central Bank is becoming increasingly noteworthy among economists and better analysts for spouting strong rhetoric about the integrity of the euro, but failing to back it up with sound interest-rate and lending policy…

“And now, people outside of banking and policy circles are starting to become skeptical of the ECB’s smoke and mirrors. People like journalists and investors.

“That’s why I’m betting that the upcoming quarterly statement of the ECB — if it’s anywhere near as rhetorically rose-colored as the last few — will raise red flags within the investing community.

“This should trigger individual and institutional short-sellers to begin taking substantial positions against the euro, driving it down. The four global macro billionaires I think are aiming to crash the currency have to get in before this happens, or they’ll leave billions in profits on the table…

“The date of that next ECB quarterly statement: Wednesday, October 7th.”

Reason three is that financial crashes are common in the fall. Won’t bother excerpting from that one, we all know that many of the famous market crashes have come in September and October.

And the final reason …

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“REASON #4: PSYCHOLOGY — The last factor that makes it seem inevitable to me that the four billionaires I’m about to introduce you to will crash the euro is simple psychology…

“After Soros’ billion-dollar Black Wednesday success, a number of global macro speculators have been chomping at the bit for a chance to do it themselves — or do it again. “

OK, so this is a looooong argument that basically says you need to be short the euro to get in on the coattails of big macro speculators who are going to bring it down, and to do so before the next announcement from the ECB.

But he’s not advocating Forex trading, or going short the currency yourself — remember, we’ve got a “five letter code” to deal with….

“One 5-letter code is your key to a play that could yield you 100 grand when it happens…

“Only 1,000 people will get this code, and the clock is ticking…”

And a little summation …

“Add it all up and you’ve got a major world currency that’s facing an imminent collapse under its own weight — which, like with the pound on Black Wednesday — is catnip to the global macro tigers I’m predicting will crash it by October 7th.

“The catch is that they must forcibly crash the euro BEFORE it happens on its own.

“Otherwise, short-selling the currency won’t make them nearly as much. And with word starting to get out that little is propping the euro up now but rosy words from the ECB, they’ll have to do it soon.”

So what is it? Well, he goes on to give a few other oblique hints that clarify that this must be an options[5] trade (it’s more visible than currency trading, it’s easier for small investors, a couple thousand people could swing the trade wildly) — and there is, whaddya know, an ETF that represents the Euro, and you can trade options on that ETF.

So here’s my guess: Justice Litle must be recommending buying put options against the CurrencyShares Euro Trust (FXE).

FXE has a fairly wide selection of options contracts available, but after skimming them to look at open interest and volume I’d guess that he must be touting the January 2010 $130 puts. This particular contract has very large open interest compared to others, and it has had very high volume lately, about 1,600 contracts last time I checked. Most contracts in this chain have volume of less than 100 contracts, and open interest of well under 1,000.

And there’s reason to look at these levels, if you just scan the chart of the FXE you’ll notice that it bottomed when the market did, back in November and March, at around $125, so there’s some logic to that level. The option trades for about 50 cents a share now ($50 per contract — a contract represents 100 shares), so if the FXE dipped to its lows at around $125 each contract would be worth about $5, so you’d multiply your money by roughly ten times, which makes sense with the tease that you could get a return of 10-20 times your money.

Of course, it certainly might not happen that way. I’m just trying to figure out what Litle is pointing toward, and it seems unlikely that he’d be so aggressive as to assume a really near-term move and buy something like the October puts that don’t allow him much time to be right. After all, even if you’re convinced that this attack on the Euro will go forward and that it will be successful, you can’t be certain of when exactly it will play out.

Oh, wait — I forgot to tell you the “secret” five-letter code. For this options contract, it’s FNKMZ. That’s the options symbol for that specific contract, the equivalent of the “ticker” for a stock. The ETF itself is essentially a trust run by Rydex that just takes the dollars invested by US traders and buys euros with them — in actuality they put those euros into something that pays a tiny bit of interest, and they use that interest to pay the expenses of the ETF.

There is a growing amount of punditry that predicts the inevitable demise of the European currency — whether because a few of the weaker Euro nations default, or because the ECB fails to contain inflation, or because the Euro zone countries have weaker economies than we’re currently guessing. Milton Friedman very famously predicted that a monetary union would fail after its first recession, and there are a lot of people who think he’ll turn out to be right.

I am far from being wise enough, or even macro enough, to know what the global tides of finance will bring for the euro — and remember, foreign exchange trading, which is what this ETF represents, is all about pairs, so when you’re buying FXE with dollars and Rydex (they manage the CurrencyShares ETFs) uses those dollars to buy euros, you’re betting specifically that the dollar will rise against the euro — so if you’re convinced that both the dollar and the euro will collapse, this might not be your trade … unless you’re certain that the euro will fall first, or harder.

And I could certainly be wrong about Litle’s chosen options contract, too — it seems extremely likely to me that he’s picking a FXE put option, but there are other relatively high-open-interest options out there as well, including the December $128 and the March $125, though neither of those has the big trading volume of the January $130 puts right now.

There are also other ETFs and ETNs that track the Euro, but none of them have the volume of the FXE, or, more importantly, any options trading volume to speak of. If you love this investment thesis but don’t want to trade options, there’s also a short ETF against the Euro, the UltraShort Euro from ProShares (EUO).

Oh, and I haven’t looked through all the data they release, but I don’t know of any reason to expect a quarterly release from the European Central Bank on October 7 — the ECB’s Governing Council (they’re the ones who set monetary policy) meets twice a month, a monetary policy meeting and an “other business” meeting, and they do have a monetary policy meeting scheduled for October 8, with a press conference following that (they don’t issue minutes, but after their first meeting each month they hold a press conference to explain their monetary policy decisions). I suppose it’s possible that this meeting will be the one that makes everyone notice that Jean-Claude Trichet isn’t actually wearing any clothes … I don’t know if there’s a reason why it would be this particular meeting, and not the one on November 5, or December 3, but perhaps Justice Litle really knows a secret, or maybe he’s just hung up on that “bad stuff happens in the autumn” bit (Soros did “break the Bank of England” in September, after all). Of course, there’s less urgency to subscribe to Litle’s newsletter if the news won’t break until December, so it’s just possible that has something to do with his deadline.

What do you think? Will the dollar rise in value against the euro (or, if you prefer the negative, will the Euro fall against the dollar?). I’d love to see that, if only to make a trip to Paris or Tuscany or Barcelona a bit more feasible for Mr. and Mrs. Gumshoe, like the good ‘ol days when a euro only cost about 80 cents in US dollars … but with the unprecedented amount of action from central banks around the world, I can’t personally say with any conviction that I have any idea what will happen to any of the world’s major fiat currencies. If you’ve got an opinion to share, please do so with a comment below. Thanks!

Endnotes:
  1. Macro Trader: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/macro-trader/
  2. euro: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/euro/
  3. George Soros: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/george-soros/
  4. British Pound: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/british-pound/
  5. options: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/options/

Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/macro-trader/crash-the-euro-and-profit-with-a-5-letter-code/


22 responses to ““Crash the Euro” and Profit with a 5-Letter Code”

  1. SageNot says:

    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=FXE&t=1y&l=on&z=m&q=l&p=m50,m200&a=m26-12-9,r14,ss,w14&c=

    The 3mo. & 6mo. views are no different, Justice Litle is being very early, IMHO!

    I hope he’s right, that would mean that the economy has finally bottomed & is reversing.

  2. fabian says:

    Seems to be a good option. By the way, who are these famous 5 billionaires? Does he say? These teasers are such a load of crap, really makes me wonder.
    Regarding shorting the EUR, why not. It could be an hedge against a stock market crash (people will fly to the safety of the US$) and it is a plausible bet in itself; EUR is even more a political currency than the US. Last but not least; all Little’s colleagues (Agora, Weiss) predict a crash of the US$. This could be a good contrarian bet.

  3. Tim Iafolla says:

    There are couple of other possibilities if anyone is interested in playing this potential move: the FXE March 125 puts have an open interest over 20,000. They are cheap ($0.40/0.50) and give a little more wiggle room on the timing.

    Another way to play it is to sell a near-the-money call. The March premiums are in the $4 to $6 range, and they should be fairly safe for naked calls–there’s little reason to assume the euro is going to suddenly rocket to new heights.

  4. B Polus says:

    Will/could SRD’s have a impact on the Euro and USD when the USA signs IMF mandate for SRD’s? Are SRD’s being considered the new world currency in the near future?

  5. Oliver R says:

    Thanks for taking a look at some teasers from Agora.

  6. Hans says:

    It’s SDR(Special Drawing Rights) not SRD.

    These have been around for decades. Just accounting units applicable to a very small part of the “currency universe”. Whether this will change; I’m sure the big Billionaires have told Agora all about it. After all it would be nice to have a “big” financial newsletter peddler on your side when you want to make the big move. Yeah right. Whether the SDR will be a new world currency in the near future is pure speculation (coin toss)…heads I win, tails You…

    Common sense can always be employed, when all else fails. Hat tip, Gumshoe!

  7. john says:

    Read this week that the Germans are going to join a bunch of other countries in issuing their bonds denominated in dollars – means that they at least think it is the dollar that is going down. They hope to recover their interest cost by the depreciation in dollars.

  8. Bill says:

    This seems like a risky bet to me since the dollar may very well crash before or with the euro. The euro is the only currency that is not completely fiat having been originally backed by 15% gold… now 7% or possibly less.

    In any case with lunatics in charge of the asylum… who can tell what they will do next?

  9. Carl says:

    As I have been living in Prague for the past 5 years, in the Center of Europe, I can first hand hear the importance of this upcoming ECB meeting. The need to halt inflation with increasing their rates. This should reduce some benefits of the Euro. The economy here is twice as bad as back home. There is a huge difference what a dollar can buy in Czech, Germany, Italy, and the surrounding States of the Euro-Union. Deficits have been doubling, and the smoke and mirror policies wont be able to buy any more time. However, I don’t see the USD making huge significant changes overnight. It will happen in small increments. Unless of course, there are 4 market movers behind it.

  10. Nicholas S says:

    We are about to re-visit “living in exciting times”. I prefer the December FXE puts because the whole huge move may be over and reversed by January/March. The dollar needs no major movers behind it, only the massive bearishness of the gold bugs trumpeting endlessly about bail out spending. When the psychology has reversed, then the dollar will plunge, probably fast.
    Go spend $59 at elliottwave.com, my very best advice to any gold bull /dollar bear just now.

  11. SnoopyJC says:

    I find this very interesting, because the Money Map Report just recomended buying FXE!!

    I guess only time will tell who’s right!
    –joe

  12. Malcolm says:

    Very interesting as Investior Place has also been puting the same thing.
    The Euro ,however, is a much bigger fish than the pound and I doubt even the big five would have sufficient clout to make muvh of a dent

  13. faustkern says:

    The issue with this “crash the euro” is that is assumes global players have stopped diversifying out of the dollar. To the contrary this move has just started; and the only reserve grade currency left is not the GBP or the YEN (both of these countries have the same deficit spending and horrendous track records on taking tough austerity decisions). The EU is the largest economic block and the ECB stance is regarded as fairly consequential (if we say A we mean A and we do A) by the powers that be. Besides that most EU countries have already announced tax hikes and concrete cuts in gvt spending starting in 2010.

  14. rosalindr says:

    I don’t know if this scare tactic is being recycled, but Larry Edelson is predicting a Black October starting on October 6th. Does anyone know what he’s talking about?

    Roz

  15. SoGiAm says:

    UBIQ- Rate cut in Europe looks strong for stocks but UBIQ was doing just FINE on its own . . . and now the company has NEWS to heat up its party!
    The last big headline from this area of the company took UBIQ from $0.16 on the 180% winning road to $0.46.
    This time, with the chart ALREADY in racing gear, I’m wondering where the added burst of buzz will do send the price action:… at vertical circle is the last major burst of news UBIQ released. Look at the volume spike the headline unleashed — 3-digit buying frenzy!

    This time around, UBIQ has nice things to SHARE about their distribution partner, iWebGate, which licensed their tech to move it around the world.
    Looks like iWebGate just raised a healthy handful of CASH to keep doing what it’s doing. And that’s pretty good stuff!
    The Stock Commander’s Bullet Points on UBIQ
    The UBIQ site remains packed with buzzwords Wall Street and VC fat cats love: transmedia entertainment, video compression, social media integration, app development, you name it! Hot theoretical stuff.
    As I suspected, Sprocket turned out to be the crown jewel. It’s a single dashboard that feeds in Facebook, Twitter, even your Netflix queue on one easy-to-reach screen. (Read more)
    The recent surge for UBIQ started on NEWS that iWebGate built Sprocket into a major new product from Telstra down in Australia. There’s 800,000 users on that platform already.
    Each user might ultimately be worth $1 to $2.50 to UBIQ billed MONTHLY. And now there’s talk of the Aussie government tapping Sprocket for its simple but TIGHT all-in-one login security.

    Bottom Line: UBIQ was a huge score for us last year before we even knew how Sprocket was going to make money.
    Now, if even ONE PERCENT of the Telstra users sign up through Sprocket, that’s an extra $100k on the UBIQ cash flow sheets!
    And for a true start-up like UBIQ, that revenue shifts the “price per sales” metrics to at least DOUBLE what they justified before.
    It ain’t zero to blockbuster, but DOUBLE is still a mighty substantial fundamental “multiplier” to work with, right?
    Of course that’s just the token “one percent” as well. The real math may be only getting STARTED now that iWebGate is kicking things up a notch.
    So if reaction to today’s headline is anything like the one we saw a few weeks back, “kicking it up” means a WHOLE NEW LEVEL of play here.
    Beautiful staircase there stepping up over the last couple weeks. Huge volume, all the indicators soaring to reflect a real BREAKOUT move.
    Historical resistance is dust now. All the old ceilings from the 9- to the 200-day average are functioning more like deep support.
    And as long as the RSI up there hangs tight at 70 and above without retracing too much below that level, the FUN is unlikely to stop!
    I said it earlier, I’ll repeat now. UBIQ might just be a BREAKOUT play for the textbooks and glory for the rest of us! Now let’s RIDE!
    Happy, Happy, Happy Trading! Disclosure: No position

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