Friday, June 20, 2008

Short US equity exposure shrinking

My short US equity exposure is shrinking. I closed my UBS short today at $21.96 for a 3-month 33% gain. I believe that UBS may very well fall much more over the next year. They will have to write down billions more due to monoline insurance co's losing AAA status. When they raise money to replenish capital, it will be highly dilutive. However, there were two very good reasons to cover today. First, the size of my position was only about 4% of my portfolio. Second, European banks hit four-year lows today, led by UBS. There won't be a better buying opportunity short term.

Two options expired today: a MCGC 12.50 call and a C 20.00 put. The call expired worthless, while the put expired $0.79 in the money for a nice gain.

At the close today, my position breakdown was as follows:

Short US equity: 65%
Long forex: 22%
Debt: 20%
Duration: 5 months
Long international equity: 18%
Long US equity: 11%
Short International equity: 9%
Options: 2%
Cash (available to trade without borrowing): 17%
Short forex: 0%
Long commodities: 0%
Short commodities: 0%
Leverage: 1.47X

Short US equity is down from 109% on May 28th, due to closing WM and UBS and paper profits. Leverage is down and cash available to trade is up.

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