Sell Your Puts May 31, 2006January 15, 2017 CHICKEN OR EGG On August 9, 1999, you read in this space the definitive answer: the egg. Are we really going to keep asking the same questions over and over? Can’t we settle some of these age-old questions? Q. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if no one’s there to hear it? A. Of course it does. Q. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? A. The egg. Because at whatever stage you decide to define a chicken as being a chicken — mutated and evolved from whatever near-chicken precursor laid the egg that hatched it — there was an egg with a forthcoming chicken inside before there was a chicken to lay it. The egg was laid by the precursor to the chicken, which had perhaps spent too much time around a poorly-shielded nuclear power plant. The egg cracks, and to the surprise of the near-chicken, out pops . . . a chicken! Anything else on your mind? (For questions like “Why is the sky blue,” where it’s not in dispute, just hard to remember, try http://www.ask.com/ and type, “Why is the sky blue?” For questions having to with your refrigerator’s ice-maker, or any other GE appliance, call 800-626-2000 twenty-four hours a day, press 4, and you get great human service.) Now, nearly seven years later, it is confirmed. I want to crow about this, but I think it must be more appropriate to cluck. PICK AN ISSUE! You can pick nits in this quick video. For example, I’m not sure some idiot at the VA might not have taken home the agency’s database with 26 million Social Security numbers under Democratic leadership just as was done under Republican leadership. But in the main, isn’t this video stunningly on point? The Republicans spend so much time vilifying the federal government, they’re not very good at running it. SELL YOUR PUTS Okay, with Nitromed down from a little over $22 last summer to $3.80 last night, I’ve sold most of my puts. Not because I’d buy the stock here – $140 million for what? – but because most of the profit from this trade has been realized, and for me, at least, it’s time to move on. I’ve kept my short position (why pay the tax by covering it?) and some September 7.5 puts. But for the most part, game over. If only they all worked out so well.