Put Options too coincidental?

[Quad4_72]

This is what I am being told over at screw loose change right now.

http://screwloosechange.xbehome.com/index.php?showtopic=1089

I have asked for various sorts of evidence but it is not working. He keeps applying probability (Poorly might I add) to the put options placed on 9/11.

I don't know much about the stock market, so this particular subject is hard for me to comment on. Basically he is saying that since the probability was so low that there must have been some foreknowledge of the attacks. Obviously, its ridiculous. He can't tell me who profited, how much they gained, who lost money, or why the people that lost money have not started an investigation. Anyone have anything else to add that has more to do with the stock market?

[Gravy]

9/11myths.com is your friend.

http://www.911myths.com/html/put_options.html

[Architect]

Coincidencies; hmm. Does that beat real evidence? Is it like a super trump card or something??

[defaultdotxbe]

Coincidencies; hmm. Does that beat real evidence? Is it like a super trump card or something??
its in 28ths list


* The tendency to deny, rather than doubt
* Double standards in the application of criticism
* The making of judgements without full inquiry
* Tendency to discredit, rather than investigate
* Use of ridicule or ad hominem attacks
* Presenting insufficient evidence or proof
* Pejorative labelling of proponents as 'promoters', 'pseudoscientists' or practitioners of 'pathological science.'
* Assuming criticism requires no burden of proof
* Making unsubstantiated counter-claims
* Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence
* Suggesting that unconvincing evidence is grounds for dismissing it
* Tendency to dismiss all evidence

[Quad4_72]

Yeah I will post that link up. My only problem with that is they always give the same response to those links. "Oh thats all you can do is link dump! Why don't you do your own research?" Stupid, yes. Of course they can never refute the link but oh well. Plus this particular nutter is trying to use probability for proof of a conspiracy. 911myths does not address that. (As they shouldn't because it is a terrible argument, but nevertheless...)

[DarkMagician]

I like bringing up Allen Poteshman's work, as he's got a peer-reviewed paper saying that while the trading was unusual, it did not show foreknowledge of the attacks. The Paul Thompson Timeline tries to misrepresent his research.

Abstract (http://www.business.uiuc.edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006Abstract.htm)
Full Paper (http://www.business.uiuc.edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006.pdf)

[Quad4_72]

I like bringing up Allen Poteshman's work, as he's got a peer-reviewed paper saying that while the trading was unusual, it did not show foreknowledge of the attacks. The Paul Thompson Timeline tries to misrepresent his research.

Abstract (http://www.business.uiuc.edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006Abstract.htm)
Full Paper (http://www.business.uiuc.edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006.pdf)

That should do it right there. That is quite the paper. I am learning a lot reading it. Thanks.

[Architect]

As I've said before, I'm putting this all down as CPD!

[Quad4_72]

As I've said before, I'm putting this all down as CPD!

CPD? I should probably know what that means but could you enlighten me?

[Architect]

Continuing Professional Development. Statutory requirement on most chartered professionals to complete a certain amount of training each year or face disciplinary action (for example watching darts on tv, or listening to 28th drone on).

[gumboot]

Yeah I will post that link up. My only problem with that is they always give the same response to those links. "Oh thats all you can do is link dump! Why don't you do your own research?" Stupid, yes. Of course they can never refute the link but oh well. Plus this particular nutter is trying to use probability for proof of a conspiracy. 911myths does not address that. (As they shouldn't because it is a terrible argument, but nevertheless...)


I think the fact that the put options hit much higher levels on other days months prior to 9/11, and that no major terrorist attacks occured after those days, is probably enough to blow the probability theory out of the water.

Afterall, it's not like the put options actually went in ON 9/11.

Also this tends to disprove a Conspiracy. If you were involved in the mass murder of 3000 citizens, you'd want to keep it very quiet by not taking any action that might lead investigators to you!

The LAST thing a conspirator would do is do something that indicated they knew about 9/11 in advance. Such as buy put options on stocks for airlines involved...

(Interestingly, why did they buy stocks in UA and Boeing, but not AA?)

And some other questions...

What other put options were high on those days? Perhaps other airline companies that WEREN'T involved in 9/11?

-Gumboot

[defaultdotxbe]

(Interestingly, why did they buy stocks in UA and Boeing, but not AA?)
they did, AA puts were the highest for that year

of course this was the day after AA announced they expected record losses for q4 (after 2 previous quarters of losing money)

the problem is CTers attempt to show that these things could not happen by random chance, but outside of vegas and statistics classrooms almost nothing in our world is random, otehrwise investors woudl just throw darts at the business section and buy whatever stock they hit

[Stankeye]

Hey wait a minute M in the Bond movie Casino Royale said terrorists did some put options on the airlines before 9/11. Must be true.

[apathoid]

What other put options were high on those days? Perhaps other airline companies that WEREN'T involved in 9/11?

-Gumboot

This is a great question and I dont have the answer, but I do know that my airline - which wasn't involved in 9/11 - had lost alot of money the previous quarter before 9/11 and were expecting to post a massive 4th quarter loss even before the attacks...

Airline Losses Widen - July '01 (http://money.cnn.com/2001/07/18/travelcenter/airlines_losses/index.htm)

[Architect]

Hey wait a minute M in the Bond movie Casino Royale said terrorists did some put options on the airlines before 9/11. Must be true.

Yea, and

1. you Americans recovered the Enigma machine

2. Memphis Belle was the true story of an American (hah) aircraft

3. WW1 was 1916-1919 (who the hell did you fight for the extra year??)

4. WW2 didn't start until, like, 1940 or 41.

It must be true, I've seen it in the movies......


;)

[28th Kingdom]

9/11myths.com is your friend.

http://www.911myths.com/html/put_options.html

Who runs that site, Centcom?

[PerryLogan]

That's item 4: Tendency to discredit, rather than investigate.

[Gravy]

Who runs that site, Centcom?Mike Williams (MikeW here), a Brit, may be surprised to hear that he is actually the United States Central Command (http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/default.aspx). Talk about multitasking!

[Architect]

Perry, is that actually your own photo or is it someone famous I should recognise?

It's just it goes so well with the message you just posted!

[gumboot]

2. Memphis Belle was the true story of an American (hah) aircraft


Er... explain? Are you saying the Memphis Belle wasn't a B-17, or that the B-17 wasn't designed by a team of engineers from the Boeing aircraft company?

-Gumboot

[ktesibios]

Er... explain? Are you saying the Memphis Belle wasn't a B-17, or that the B-17 wasn't designed by a team of engineers from the Boeing aircraft company?

-Gumboot

I think he's referring to the '92 movie by that name, which did take a lot of liberties with the real story of the Belle.

William Wyler's wartime documentary is the first thing you want to watch, then, after doing some reading about the B-17 (Edward Jablonski's book is exceelent if you can find a copy), you're all set to watch the Hollywood movie and play a game of "spot the historical/technical inaccuracies" while enjoying the aerial photography.

[JamesB]

I briefly exchanged e-mail with Professor Poteshman, and did a post on SLC on the paper earlier.

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2006/10/911-theory-published-in-journal.html

While I believe he is a serious academic and it is a pretty good paper, I still have some problems with it. Essentially he is saying that the trades (he only examines UAL and AMR) are in the 96th percentile in his way of measuring put option volume. Otherwise, it is in the top 4-5% of occurrence. Based on this he concludes it is likely the trades involved foreknowledge.

This of course cannot prove anything specific though, it could just be pure random chance, basically a 1 in 20 of occurrence. The biggest problem I had with the paper is he essentially self selects the data to read. He picks 3 measurements, but then discards one, because it didn't show a higher occurrence. Well, then he is basically cherry picking numbers that fit his hypothesis.

You will never see this paper mention among the CTs much, except for LIHOP, because his entire thesis is based opon Osama bin Laden knowing about the attacks 5 days beforehand, so he only looks at the trading on those two stocks during just this period. Obviously the Illuminati/NWO could have carried out a much more lucrative and harder to detect fraud over a longer period of time.

This brings up another issue I had with the paper, he only measures the maximum trade volume during that 5 day period. I asked him in e-mail, why he didn't measure the average volume over that period instead. He answered that because it didn't show anything. Once again, indicating he is cherry picking data to a certain extent.

[eeyore1954]

Puts and calls on many stocks are thinly traded and so it is not usual to see large swings in volume.

FORD MTR CO DEL COM PAR $0.01 JAN 20, 2007 $ 10.000 PUT

https://www.etrade.wallst.com/v1/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?YYY220_/UfRI8EalsDAUXwwn7MPZWS+auOOgc4Bxe8NzgriuP+BMm1TBdd 9RCHHpBDrqMKTZ/+GgR3xnQgl1/dIgVD+xS9C0I03BxIHicQRiXVZdjP2n9GGncXxiawDsf4k0ciI 4iohGRjUfQfm3hZZdT7Hn3HFpxNJpGzABxcniNZZ+QDBGhj9Qw lmqtL9a6sbRp7/

I tried to get this graph into the post but was unable but if you go to the link you will see big swings in volume.

This was just an option I picked sort of at random . The very first put I graphed showed these volume swings. This is from a current option due to expire in a few weeks. Not some world record for option volume.

[Horatius]

That's item 4: Tendency to discredit, rather than investigate.

We should start a separate thread - how many of these 28th commits in one day, and how many times he does it. Let's see if he can set a new record!

[Dog Town]

of course this was the day after AA announced they expected record losses for q4 (after 2 previous quarters of losing money)


It never ceases to amaze me, how ignorant of the real world, "twoofers" are!


They are like alzheimers patients, everyday, and everyone is something new!
"That's never happened before", or my favorite "WHY"! It's like a retarded 3 year old! They repeat the same tripe... repeatedly!


ETA: Redundent, I know, but that is them!

[Architect]

Er... explain? Are you saying the Memphis Belle wasn't a B-17, or that the B-17 wasn't designed by a team of engineers from the Boeing aircraft company?

-Gumboot


Putnam always said that the film is apparently true story of a British bomber team, but the only way the American's would finance the film was if it was changed to Americans. So they changed it to the B17 and tied it back to some wartime American documentary..........


....if I remember correctly.

[Gravy]

I like bringing up Allen Poteshman's work, as he's got a peer-reviewed paper saying that while the trading was unusual, it did not show foreknowledge of the attacks. The Paul Thompson Timeline tries to misrepresent his research.

Abstract (http://www.business.uiuc.edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006Abstract.htm)
Full Paper (http://www.business.uiuc.edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006.pdf)The paper is of very limited scope. Poteshman does conclude that the long put ratios were consistent with terrorist foreknowledge. That's fine. But he doesn't mention that these are just as consistent with the trading newsletter advice and quarterly projections that we know occurred in the week before the attacks, or that a lengthy investigation was done that identified the traders, or that the largest trader involved also purchased AA stock.

[gumboot]

Putnam always said that the film is apparently true story of a British bomber team, but the only way the American's would finance the film was if it was changed to Americans. So they changed it to the B17 and tied it back to some wartime American documentary..........


....if I remember correctly.



The Memphis Belle was an actual American B-17F Flying Fortress (serial 41-24485) with the 324th Bomb Squadron of the 91st Bomb Group, 8th US Army Air Force, based at Bassingbourn, England.

The Belle has two claims to fame - firstly, its crew, led by Captain Robert Morgan, were the first USAAF crew to successfully complete 25 combat missions (although 4 were in another aircraft). The airframe itself was also the first USAAF airframe to complete 25 combat missions (the last ones with a different crew) although it had every major part of its airframe replaced at least once during its service.

Obviously the film takes a lot of artistic license (the crew have different names, are composite characters, the events are taken from multiple missions, the Belle had a different crew for her 25th mission etc...) but the premise is accurate.

-Gumboot

[Architect]

That's it, I'll be scouring the internet for evidence of the Putman version!
:)



So was Eric Stolz really on it then?

[gumboot]

That's it, I'll be scouring the internet for evidence of the Putman version!
:)



So was Eric Stolz really on it then?



Yes. They CGI'd old footage of him from his war days into the film, kinda like a reverse Forrest Gump.

-Gumboot


ETA. It sounds like you might be confused with U-571. This fictional account was supposedly inspired by the true account of the capture of U-110 by the Royal Navy. The story was "Americanised" to ensure funding. Interestingly enough, David Balme, the British officer who actually led the party that snuck aboard U-110 and stole the encryption equipment, was very positive towards the film and actually argued in FAVOUR of its Americanisation (claiming it was required in order to secure financing).

[JonnyFive]

(for example watching darts on tv, or listening to 28th drone on).

Man, you must've done something really bad last year, with all the 28th K and ChristopherA you've been exposed to. What, did you design an orphanage that collapsed and killed three hundred babies and assorted adorable kittens or something?

[JonnyFive]

As far as put options go: as pointed out earlier, the levels weren't necessarily some all-time high. Even if they were, it's hardly solid evidence of a massive conspiracy absent other good information. It only sounds ominous when Avery and friends stick some techno music over it.

[Architect]

Man, you must've done something really bad last year, with all the 28th K and ChristopherA you've been exposed to. What, did you design an orphanage that collapsed and killed three hundred babies and assorted adorable kittens or something?


Aha! You're familiar with my work then?

[MikeW]

Who runs that site, Centcom?
No, I do. Why?

[Anti-sophist]

"Too coincidental" is a great term. I'd love to see their precise definition of that.

[JonnyFive]

"Too coincidental" is a great term. I'd love to see their precise definition of that.

"Of, or providing more coincidence than the prevailing trans-meta-theory requires or allows for, allowing for acceptable hyperdimensional flange reason thresholding."

[TjW]

And can something be "not coincidental enough"?

[JonnyFive]

And can something be "not coincidental enough"?

Yes.

[Anti-sophist]

Not to a conspiracy theorist. The concept of a random variable having a non-zero expected value blows their mind.

I always love when CTers try to tell me things are "too coincidental" because it allows for me to force them to expose their embarrassingly poor grasp of mathematics and probability.

[JonnyFive]

I always love when CTers try to tell me things are "too coincidental" because it allows for me to force them to expose their embarrassingly poor grasp of mathematics and probability.

Probability is to CTist ideas what a fire bomb is to six thousand pounds of dry straw soaked in gasoline.

[Brainster]

The paper is of very limited scope. Poteshman does conclude that the long put ratios were consistent with terrorist foreknowledge. That's fine. But he doesn't mention that these are just as consistent with the trading newsletter advice and quarterly projections that we know occurred in the week before the attacks, or that a lengthy investigation was done that identified the traders, or that the largest trader involved also purchased AA stock.

These are important points; he focuses on whether the trading in puts was "unusual", but of course one assumes that the newsletter's recommendation to buy those put options was "unusual" (in the sense of not an every day occurence).

I do like his point about the November 12, 2001 airline crash and the "unusual" trading activity before that in AA puts, and that he points out other, shorter-term options would have been more valuable than the ones bought in the week or so before 9-11.

[Myriad]

The error they're making in that thread is to attempt to directly correlate the probability of an occurrence with the probability of its being a coincidence (that is, due to chance alone rather than an unknown correlation). In order to relate the probability of a specific event with its probability of being a coincidence, you must know the size of the space the distinctive event was drawn from -- that is, the number of other possible events, that did not happen, that would have appeared at least equally notable.

Perhaps the best-known example of this error is the "Bible Code" fallacy. "Bible Code" proponents point to patterns of characters in the Bible that form striking juxtapositions of words. The probability of each of the specific juxtapositions they find having occurred is astronomically small, creating an illusion that they could not be due to chance alone. But the number of possible juxtapositions that would be equally striking is astronomically large. So the "hits" found are nothing more than what chance expectation would predict, which has been confimed by using the "Bible Code" methods to find equally dramatic-looking "messages" and "prophecies" in texts of known non-divine provenance.

If we're talking about suspicious financial dealings suggesting foreknowledge of 9-11, then our event space must include all types of financial dealings that would be in that category. For instance, if unusually large amounts of gold were purchased during the first week of September 2001, then people theorizing foreknowledge would be eager to point this out (gold being generally seen as likely to rise in price during times of economic uncertainty). Ditto for unusually large purchases of oil futures betting on a price rise, the selling of shares of insurance companies, put orders or selloffs of companies with signficant operations located in the towers, purchases of shares in industries likely to benefit such as security and ground transportation, sell-offs or puts of vacation travel destination businesses, and no doubt many others. (Our possibility space of suspicious transactions must be larger still, if we hypothesize that the collapse of the towers, and not just the planned hijacking of planes, collisions, and fires, was foreknown.)

We must also define how "unusually large" an anomaly in financial dealings must be in order to qualify as suspicious. One reasonable threshold might be that either the total magnitude of transactions in the week before September 11th must be the highest for any week of the entire year preceeding September 11th, or the single day with the largest magnitude of transactions for the entire year preceeding September 11th must have occurred in the week preceeding September 11th. Note that not all of the examples pointed to in the thread necessarily meet that threshold; the various sources appear to disagree on that. (We can set lower thresholds of suspicion, but the lower we set them, the higher their probability of occurring by chance alone).

If we're fairly strict, and assume that the foreknowers apply very little imagination in predicting the likely effects of the attacks, how many possible transactions would need to be considered? Certainly puts or sell-offs of the two airlines, puts or sell-offs of any of at least half a dozen insurance companies, and puts or sell-offs of any of at least a dozen tower tenant companies should be on the list. That's forty possibilities right there. Between puts or sell-offs in other industries likely to suffer, investments in businesses likely to benefit, investments in commodities likely to rise in times of economic disruption and uncertainty, currency trades and other international transactions based on predictions of tightened borders, we could surely come up with well over another 20 possibilities, giving us a conservative total of 60.

Now, the probability of an event meeting our threshold of suspicion for any given one of these 60 types of transactions must be determined. The probability of a weekly high total occurring in any given week of the year by chance alone is 1 in 52. The probability of the highest single day occurring in any given week of the year is likewise 1 in 52. However, these two possibilities are not independent of one another, so the probability of either one happening is not simply (1 - (1 - 1/52) * (1 - 1/52)) or 1 in 26.25, but lower than that, somehwere between 1 in 26.35 and 1 in 52. I'll say 1 in 40 as a rough estimate.

So, we have sixty possible suspicious events, each with a probability of .025 (1 in 40) of happening by chance alone immediately prior to September 11 (or in any other given week). What is the probability of exactly one of them happening by chance alone? How about two, three, four, or five of them? To compute this we use the formula for a binomial distribution (see equation 2, here. (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BinomialDistribution.html)

Probability of one suspicious event: .337
Probability of two suspicious events: .255
Probability of three suspicious events: .126
Probability of four suspicious events: .046
Probability of five suspicious events: .013

Oh yeah, and

Probability of no suspicious events: .219

Doesn't look like "one chance in a million" to me. It looks like the findings are well within our expectations for what we would find if we examine financial dealings prior to any event for which there was no foreknowledge.

(Permission to repost elswhere granted, if it suits anyone's needs.)

Respectfully,
Myriad

[Anti-sophist]

I tried making a post like that once. That was when I was young and naive and thought a thorough, well-reasoned, and mathematically sound argument would be convincing.

Later I learned that when they see numbers, they tune out and start saying things like "OH COME ON IF SOMEONE WON THE LOTTO 5 DAYS IN A ROW, WOULD YOU THINK IT WAS OK? JUST USE YOUR COMMON SENSE"

Like the concept that "too few coincidences" would be just as a big of a red-flag as "too many" totally blew their mind. That sort of buries the (provably false) myth that "every coincidence makes conspiracy more likely". I tried to explain this by explaining expected values and standard deviations, and how +1 std-dev is just as unlikely and -1. They were completely unable to handle it.

[alexg]

The error they're making in that thread is to attempt to directly correlate the probability of an occurrence with the probability of its being a coincidence (that is, due to chance alone rather than an unknown correlation). In order to relate the probability of a specific event with its probability of being a coincidence, you must know the size of the space the distinctive event was drawn from -- that is, the number of other possible events, that did not happen, that would have appeared at least equally notable.

Perhaps the best-known example of this error is the "Bible Code" fallacy. "Bible Code" proponents point to patterns of characters in the Bible that form striking juxtapositions of words. The probability of each of the specific juxtapositions they find having occurred is astronomically small, creating an illusion that they could not be due to chance alone. But the number of possible juxtapositions that would be equally striking is astronomically large. So the "hits" found are nothing more than what chance expectation would predict, which has been confimed by using the "Bible Code" methods to find equally dramatic-looking "messages" and "prophecies" in texts of known non-divine provenance.

If we're talking about suspicious financial dealings suggesting foreknowledge of 9-11, then our event space must include all types of financial dealings that would be in that category. For instance, if unusually large amounts of gold were purchased during the first week of September 2001, then people theorizing foreknowledge would be eager to point this out (gold being generally seen as likely to rise in price during times of economic uncertainty). Ditto for unusually large purchases of oil futures betting on a price rise, the selling of shares of insurance companies, put orders or selloffs of companies with signficant operations located in the towers, purchases of shares in industries likely to benefit such as security and ground transportation, sell-offs or puts of vacation travel destination businesses, and no doubt many others. (Our possibility space of suspicious transactions must be larger still, if we hypothesize that the collapse of the towers, and not just the planned hijacking of planes, collisions, and fires, was foreknown.)

We must also define how "unusually large" an anomaly in financial dealings must be in order to qualify as suspicious. One reasonable threshold might be that either the total magnitude of transactions in the week before September 11th must be the highest for any week of the entire year preceeding September 11th, or the single day with the largest magnitude of transactions for the entire year preceeding September 11th must have occurred in the week preceeding September 11th. Note that not all of the examples pointed to in the thread necessarily meet that threshold; the various sources appear to disagree on that. (We can set lower thresholds of suspicion, but the lower we set them, the higher their probability of occurring by chance alone).

If we're fairly strict, and assume that the foreknowers apply very little imagination in predicting the likely effects of the attacks, how many possible transactions would need to be considered? Certainly puts or sell-offs of the two airlines, puts or sell-offs of any of at least half a dozen insurance companies, and puts or sell-offs of any of at least a dozen tower tenant companies should be on the list. That's forty possibilities right there. Between puts or sell-offs in other industries likely to suffer, investments in businesses likely to benefit, investments in commodities likely to rise in times of economic disruption and uncertainty, currency trades and other international transactions based on predictions of tightened borders, we could surely come up with well over another 20 possibilities, giving us a conservative total of 60.

Now, the probability of an event meeting our threshold of suspicion for any given one of these 60 types of transactions must be determined. The probability of a weekly high total occurring in any given week of the year by chance alone is 1 in 52. The probability of the highest single day occurring in any given week of the year is likewise 1 in 52. However, these two possibilities are not independent of one another, so the probability of either one happening is not simply (1 - (1 - 1/52) * (1 - 1/52)) or 1 in 26.25, but lower than that, somehwere between 1 in 26.35 and 1 in 52. I'll say 1 in 40 as a rough estimate.

So, we have sixty possible suspicious events, each with a probability of .025 (1 in 40) of happening by chance alone immediately prior to September 11 (or in any other given week). What is the probability of exactly one of them happening by chance alone? How about two, three, four, or five of them? To compute this we use the formula for a binomial distribution (see equation 2, here. (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BinomialDistribution.html)

Probability of one suspicious event: .337
Probability of two suspicious events: .255
Probability of three suspicious events: .126
Probability of four suspicious events: .046
Probability of five suspicious events: .013

Oh yeah, and

Probability of no suspicious events: .219

Doesn't look like "one chance in a million" to me. It looks like the findings are well within our expectations for what we would find if we examine financial dealings prior to any event for which there was no foreknowledge.

(Permission to repost elswhere granted, if it suits anyone's needs.)

Respectfully,
Myriad


I was wondering about this. So glad you could articulate it! Could the same reasoning explain also why the terrorist passport was found at the WTC? Assume the possibility of a single passport making it through and surviving is low. So what? There were many possible unlikely events which would be in the same space, correct? The chances one of them would occur may actually be quite high. The trick would be in predicting exactly which one would happen, in which case your chances would be extremely low?

[gumboot]

To quote Terry Pratchett...

One in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.

-Gumboot

[Bell]

Yea, and

[...]

2. Memphis Belle was the true story of an American (hah) aircraft

[...]

http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/movies/memphis_belle_movie

Lot more interesting movies and pictures on that site!

[~enigma~]

the Enigma machine
I am a man not a machine :D

[Bell]

I am a man not a machine :D

You're a banana :Banane10:

[~enigma~]

No, I do. Why?
Mike...there is an idiot woowoo running around Myspace trying to dig up dirt on you. Be ready for a smear campaign from some moron named Will from NC. You got the woowoos running scared.

[Myriad]

I was wondering about this. So glad you could articulate it! Could the same reasoning explain also why the terrorist passport was found at the WTC? Assume the possibility of a single passport making it through and surviving is low. So what? There were many possible unlikely events which would be in the same space, correct? The chances one of them would occur may actually be quite high. The trick would be in predicting exactly which one would happen, in which case your chances would be extremely low?

That's the basic idea, yes. However, saying that it "explains why" might be overstating the case a little. After all, cause and effect does apply. There is some actual physical reason why that particular passport survived, though it's unlikely we'll ever know what it was. What the probability principles explain is why we shouldn't be surprised that unlikely-seeming things sometimes happen, especially when we know people have been deliberately sifting unlikely things out from among a large number of possibilities.

If three different light bulbs burned out in my house on the same day, I wouldn't call the electric company and accuse them of sending me the wrong size kilowatts. I'd call it chance. But if monkeys flew out of my butt one morning, I wouldn't say to myself "it's OK, think of the enormous number of equally unlikely things that didn't fly out of my butt!" and then forget about it. I'd look for an explanation.

Which, apparently, the 9/11 investigators did, for the suspicious market events in question. And found mundane non-criminal explanations.

I'm glad you found my explanation helpful. Formal probability theory uses highly technical language to explain the same ideas, far more precisely but harder to grasp. Some of the phrasing I've used would probably make a mathematician cringe, but it's a starting point from which you can look into more rigorous treatments if you want to.

Respectfully,
Myriad

[jhunter1163]

I've read both of the Bible Code books and didn't find them particularly convincing. Simply the Law of Large Numbers at work. The one thing that was striking was the code's correct prediction of Rabin's assassination (and the year in which it would occur), which was discovered before it happened. The author of the book tried to communicate the prediction to Rabin, who ignored it. Can't say I blame him. No doubt he got hundreds of such predictions.

Still, nothing more than a lucky guess.

[Bell]

I've read both of the Bible Code books and didn't find them particularly convincing. Simply the Law of Large Numbers at work. The one thing that was striking was the code's correct prediction of Rabin's assassination (and the year in which it would occur), which was discovered before it happened. The author of the book tried to communicate the prediction to Rabin, who ignored it. Can't say I blame him. No doubt he got hundreds of such predictions.

Still, nothing more than a lucky guess.

I once read or saw about a guy who 'predicted' an airline crash (timeframe, number of deaths, color of plane etc.). His 'prediction' came true. But all he did, was take the averages for all the elements of his prediction.

[Quad4_72]

Does anyone have a link to the investigation done on the put options?

[Quad4_72]

Oh by the way Myriad thank you for that post about the probability. That is exactly what I was looking for. I posted it in that thread and quoted you.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

<snip>
Still, nothing more than a lucky guess.
Or the assassin was inspired by the passage and it became self-fulfilling.

[jhunter1163]

Or the assassin was inspired by the passage and it became self-fulfilling.

I don't think so. As far as I know, that prediction wasn't publicized before Rabin's assassination. The way the code worked was that you took every second letter, third letter, fourth letter, and so on, all the way through the Old Testament, and see what developed. This particular prediction developed with a skip sequence of 4,772. That is, they divided the Old Testament into rows of 4,772 letters, and in the middle of the grid that developed they found the name Yitzhak Rabin (running vertically). Crossing that, running horizontally, they found the words "assassin that will assassinate". I brought down the book for review, and they also found the correct year and the name of the assassin in the same chart.

A couple of things to point out: one, they used the Hebrew version of the Old Testament. Every Hebrew letter also stands for a number, so finding the correct year was not remarkable. Two, they arranged the letters in grids and looked horizontally, vertically and at all angles in between, both forwards and backwards. Not just straight 45-degree diagonals, and left-to-right as well as right-to-left (Hebrew reads right-to-left). Given the size of the text (305,000+ letters) and all the above, it would have been more surprising if they DIDN'T find some remarkable stuff.

[jhunter1163]

Why would they even bother with put options? Supposedly they have the $2.3 trillion that Rummy stole plus all that gold under the WTC. Why risk blowing the whole operation's cover for a lousy couple hundred thousand dollars?

[LashL]

bump

[maccy]

There's a general thread about the supposed financial motives for 9/11 here:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=69261

[Quad4_72]

This is what the idiot at screwloosechange had to say about Myriad's calculations:

"wow.. you know what, i almost don't even know where to begin with this piece of **** thing you copied and pasted. he uses good language and mathematical calculations that may seem convincing to someone who has no knowledge of probability... but... to anyone with half a brain and some basic knowledge of probability, this argument is easily revealed for not being correct and basically using very manipulative language to make it appear as if there was nothing unusual about these trades. now... i'd be happy to rip this piece of **** to pieces, but first i want to know if this is going to be worth my time. you got me to read 25 pages of some other **** that agreed with me! yet you still deftend this article because it didn't point fingers, even though it admitted that whoever did make these trades did so with foreknowledge.

so if this is the final argument you're sticking with, i'll be happy to explain how incorrect it is and why it is totally wrong. but i think you know that his "calculations" if you can even call them that, are totally incorrect and don't make any sense with respect to what we're dealing with. so how about you answer my 5 questions, and give me a real arguement, because even you know this piece of **** you posted isn't worth my time to go though and disprove line by line."-truth911.net

[Firestone]

This is what the idiot at screwloosechange had to say about Myriad's calculations:

:words:

... but... to anyone with half a brain and some basic knowledge of probability, this argument is easily revealed for not being correct

more :words:
-truth911.netOf course, to anyone with a whole brain and good knowledge of probability, Myriad's calculations make sense.

[defaultdotxbe]

This is what the idiot at screwloosechange had to say about Myriad's calculations:

"wow.. you know what, i almost don't even know where to begin with this piece of **** thing you copied and pasted. he uses good language and mathematical calculations that may seem convincing to someone who has no knowledge of probability... but... to anyone with half a brain and some basic knowledge of probability, this argument is easily revealed for not being correct and basically using very manipulative language to make it appear as if there was nothing unusual about these trades. now... i'd be happy to rip this piece of **** to pieces, but first i want to know if this is going to be worth my time. you got me to read 25 pages of some other **** that agreed with me! yet you still deftend this article because it didn't point fingers, even though it admitted that whoever did make these trades did so with foreknowledge.

so if this is the final argument you're sticking with, i'll be happy to explain how incorrect it is and why it is totally wrong. but i think you know that his "calculations" if you can even call them that, are totally incorrect and don't make any sense with respect to what we're dealing with. so how about you answer my 5 questions, and give me a real arguement, because even you know this piece of **** you posted isn't worth my time to go though and disprove line by line."-truth911.net
i thought that reply was really funny, pretty much amounts to "i can do that but i dont wanna"

soemthing youd expect from an 8 year old

[Mince]

Contrarily, purposeful put options on or about 9/11 would have been too obvious.

[ktesibios]

I've never taken a course on probability or statistics, but I can still draw a valuable lesson from Myriad's post.

A CTer asks: "how likely is it that this single suspicious-looking event I've selected after the fact will occur by chance?", concludes by "common sense" that it's impossible and therefore proof of the CT.

Myriad asks: "how likely is it that any one of a whole set of possible suspicious-looking events will occur by chance?", works out the math for a set of examples and concludes that it's a lot more likely than "common sense" would lead us to believe.

The lesson I take from this?

If you want to interrogate reality and obtain useful answers, the first step is to ask it the right questions.

[Quad4_72]

i thought that reply was really funny, pretty much amounts to "i can do that but i dont wanna"

soemthing youd expect from an 8 year old

Yeah its ridiculous. That guy is unbelievable.

[Polaris]

Does anyone have a link to the investigation done on the put options?

Yes.

9/11myths.com is your friend.

http://www.911myths.com/html/put_options.html

[Quad4_72]

Yes.
The investigation I was refering to was the one that was more of an official one that proved nothing was fishy about the put options on 9/11.

[Polaris]

The investigation I was refering to was the one that was more of an official one that proved nothing was fishy about the put options on 9/11.

Oh ok. If it's not on 911myths, try snopes.

[Myriad]

Thanks for the appreciative comments, everyone (Quad, Firestone, and ktesibios in particular)! Ktesibios, that's a great way of summing it up!

I'm now posting directly in the screwloosechange thread, here:
http://screwloosechange.xbehome.com/index.php?showtopic=1089

Bring your own popcorn!

Best,
Myriad

[switchtech]

Thanks for the appreciative comments, everyone (Quad, Firestone, and ktesibios in particular)! Ktesibios, that's a great way of summing it up!

I'm now posting directly in the screwloosechange thread, here:
http://screwloosechange.xbehome.com/index.php?showtopic=1089

Bring your own popcorn!

Best,
Myriad

Rather than add yet another logon to my repertoire - let me add here and if anyone wants to carry to screwloosechange...

I don't remember the source at the moment, however, I remember when I first heard about the anomalous trades that the response was along the lines of checking how often the put options were used in the year prior to 9/11 and what their general size relative to a "normal" trading day were. What I remember, and I need to check on, is that all of the airlines had their stocks traded via put options several times that year, usually in combinations of two or three airlines managing to be hit the same week.

Also, the normal day trading range for put options is tiny, truly tiny. When an institutional trader trades put options they do it in bulk. Any such given trade will dwarf normal volume for the day.

Finally, as pointed it several times, the agency responsible for the put on UA lost money on AMR within the same four day period in question. Also, since the put for UA came before the purchase of AMR, it seems likely that the put could not have been in expectation of 9/11 or the AMR deal would never have happened.

Not that 911truth.net would find any of this convincing.

[maccy]

If the theory is that the people making the put options (if that's the right way of phrasing it) had foreknowledge and they wanted the attack to go ahead for other reasons (and perhaps planned it themselves) then why risk the whole thing by placing put options as well?

It's another pointless complication.

[twinstead]

If the theory is that the people making the put options (if that's the right way of phrasing it) had foreknowledge and they wanted the attack to go ahead for other reasons (and perhaps planned it themselves) then why risk the whole thing by placing put options as well?

It's another pointless complication.

Yea. If I were in charge of the Black Ops Department of the NWO, I would be pretty mad that some clown decided to try to make money off our brilliant false flag by in the stock exchange.

[Oliver]

If the theory is that the people making the put options (if that's the right way of phrasing it) had foreknowledge and they wanted the attack to go ahead for other reasons (and perhaps planned it themselves) then why risk the whole thing by placing put options as well?

It's another pointless complication.

Wouldn´t it be more interesting which put options were placed in
other branches that suffered from the attacks? Or the investments
into companies who made financial gains from 9/11?