"Diamonds Cut Diamonds"


I don't know what it is about times like this. You know, when lots of people start noticing what seems like more signal in the noise produced by the infoverse. From long experience, we know that the more we think "the event" is imminent, the less likely it is to happen. We also know that trying to piece together actionable intelligence (or a better understanding of events) out of smoke and mirrors and nonsense is a mostly futile waste of time. But that doesn't stop some of us.

I'll offer the following, not as evidence that "the event" is going to happen soon---far from it, probably---but more for your parapolitical viewing pleasure.

Don your tinfoil hat, underwear and robe:

As you know, I've been following the silly rally in the Dow, with its three new record high closes in a row. Yep. Each of the last three days has seen the Dow close higher than the last; further higher into uncharted, record, territory. Meanwhile, the housing bubble, the only thing keeping the U.S. (and world) economy going over the past several years, is popping right in front of our eyes.

And, as you know, I thought it was interesting that bets on the Dow declining substantially by October 20th outnumbered the bets on the Dow rising substantially by October 20th by: 12 to 1 on October 3rd, 19 to 1 on October 4th, and 16 to 1 today.

How, exactly, am I getting these numbers?

I'm following the out of the money, open interest on the options that track the DIAMONDS Trust, Series 1 (symbol:DIA) exchange traded fund. In plain language, this means that I'm following the most speculative bets on where the Dow Jones Industrial Average will be at the close of trading on October 20, 2006.

What I have to say about the options on the DIAMONDS, however, might not be as interesting as what someone else had to say about diamonds. The following are purportedly the words of Osama bin Laden, as reported by al Jazeera back in January 2006:

"My message to you is about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way to end it.
I had not intended to speak to you about this issue, because, for us, this issue is already decided on: diamonds cut diamonds."

I know it's probably nothing, but I think that They like to make us look anyway.