Rereading The Big Short and waiting for the movie!

I'm a big fan of Michael Lewis and just reread his The Big Short, on a few people who saw the financial crisis coming and cashed in on it hugely.

I only started trading options in 2009, shortly before this book came out. So I was able to read it this time with fresh eyes, seeing details that I missed the first time.

Bear Stearns deserved to die: they sold a bunch of 8-year puts to the protagonists on credit default swaps, which were tied to the subprime mortgage financial engines of the day. This gave the holders of these puts the right to sell at whatever price was specified at the time of that sale ... before the prices of all this stuff collapsed to very near zero.

The movie comes out this Friday the 11th "at select theaters" (not anywhere near me as far as I can tell) but opens just before Christmas everywhere. I can't wait!

Sorry, Cricket: Project Fi is too compelling!

A coworker introduced me to Google's Project Fi:

I had read about this briefly but missed the big advantages:

• Refunds of fees for unused data from your data plan
• Make your phone a wifi hotspot at no extra charge beyond the extra data

The plan takes advantage of dual-network phones, currently the Nexus 5X and 6P. These use the wifi network if available, otherwise the stronger of the two of Sprint (CDMA) or T-Mobile (GSM).

The combination of these feature is too compelling to ignore, as I have been paying AT&T $51 per month for their wifi hotspot for over a year. I can turn that off and buy the (required) new Nexus 5X to replace my current Nexus 5 and be still ahead of the game paying off the new phone

$17/month.

I'm just waiting for my invitation as they are apparently rolling this out a few people at a time.

Try it yourself: http://fi.google.com.