Archive of stories published by Fifth Grade Finance

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2022

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Jun 5, 2021

06/05/2021 — Reverse Decay

Anyone with even the slightest understanding of basic options theory will tell you that the value of an option…

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Feb 1, 2021

02/01/2021 — Welcome to GameStopGate

The days, weeks, and maybe months ahead will reveal bits and pieces of last week’s attempted trading coup, filling gaps in our collective understanding of what took place, in just one more crazy story of a bizarre year. At present, the press and pundits have…

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Jan 7, 2021

01/07/2021 — Market Misunderstanding

I’m not surprised that the S&P futures are up 40 points only 24 hours after an armed insurrection swarmed, and momentarily took control of the US Capitol building. A few friends of mine contacted me to ask about what effect all of this had on the market. They…

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Oct 6, 2022

10/06/2022 — Not So Fast

September of 2022 was the worst month the financial markets have had since March of 2020. For those who’ve been living under several piles of rocks, with their headphones on, in a cave in East Jerkmenistan, that was when the pandemic finally made serious inroads on this side of the…

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Mar 1, 2021

03/01/2021 — Don’t Miss The Boat…Er Point

Just another pedestrian 600 point rally for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Facetious as that last sentence may sound, there exists a bit of truth under the sarcasm.

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Apr 12, 2022

04/12/2022 — Frontrunning (A Crash Course)

Frontrunning.

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

May 17, 2021

05/17/2021 — Volatility (Slight Return)

After a month of very little (good) trade, last week gave a glimmer of hope that near-term…

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Apr 1, 2021

04/01/2021 — April Fool

Near the end of the ol’ floor days, a small minority of traders routinely supplied the vast majority of markets for customer-quoted prices in the VIX pit. The advent of negotiated trading (where brokers proffer hypothetical offers to secure their cut of a marketable order) permitted…

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

May 28, 2021

05/28/2021 — The FOMO Market

I learned about FOMO four years ago as friends laughed at my continued ignorance of modern terms, or as I like to call them, lazy abbreviations. I can appreciate this particular shorthand a bit more for its muppet-like goofy sound and its lexical proximity to FOMC (Federal Open…

Willie Witten in Fifth Grade Finance

Jan 25, 2021

01/25/2021 — A Perpetual Source of Volatility

At around 9:50 CST this morning, financial markets went into a brief, but sharp nosedive. The S&P index lost over 60 points in about fifteen minutes. As usual, the pundits scrambled to come up with explanations for the tumble, and many of them…

These were the top 10 stories published by Fifth Grade Finance; you can also dive into yearly archives: 2020, 2021, and 2022.

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Fifth Grade Finance

A running soliloquy covering the life and times of a financial trader. Opinions, insights, commentary, and stories from past and present…served with a healthy dose of irreverence.

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