If you do an attack the stocks drop; if you had bought the stock before the attack wouldnt you be losing money?
sharei wondered about that too. maybe someone here can clear that up. also, how did they figure out he was a wall street guy just because he took a butt model to iceland?
shareThe mayor speculated that Ryder bought put options. A put option is a right to sell stock at a certain price. So, let's say Ryder bought a put option on XYZ corporation with a strike price of 100. That means he has the right to sell XYZ stock at $100 per share regardless of the current price. So, if the price drops to $80 per share, he can buy at $80 and sell at $100.
The thing that made no sense to me is why they assumed that the stock market would go down because of this. I don't see why the market would go down just because of a hostage situation.
Dunno quite how Ryder made all that money on the pay-off but they guessed he was a finance guy from all his money-related chat about commodities and rising stocks.
I hope someone can reply here about Ryder's financial plan.
...now I do it just to watch their f----n' expression change.
Nah it has to do with the price of gold actually. He bought a whole bunch of gold right before he pulled off the heist; while he was in the subway it briefly showed his laptop with the current gold prices on it. When stocks and the US dollar values decrease, the value of gold increases. That's why gold investing is a good idea, especially in times of high inflation.
shareHi Max - yes, I remember that scene - I didn't understand how the gold/$ values are related but it sort of makes sense.
I work in the Middle East and a number of expats here have been buying gold rather than changing their money to $.
...now I do it just to watch their f----n' expression change.
When the value of the dollar falls, the value of gold typically increases. Although our money is no longer backed by gold, gold holds a value relative to the dollar. After an attack, people become worried about the financial future of the country and as such the stock market and the value of the dollar tend to go down. If the value of the dollar goes down (the dollar becomes worth less)and it would take more dollars to buy the an ounce of gold. What Travolta did was invest in gold beforehand with the money he scammed from the NY pension fund and then watched the value of it increase after he hijacked the train.
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Did you even watch the same film?
His scheme had nothing to do with stocks and everything with him making 307 million dollars off gold shares at the end of the day. Pause the screen if you don't believe it. Right in the last cab scene before he heads out on foot.
When stock prices go down, gold prices go up. Gold is a market synonym for stability. It's price never goes down in the long term and whenever there is uncertainty, gold's price per troy ounce goes higher and higher. You can google the historical price of gold to see the constant upwards price growth curve since decades ago up until today.
The entire point of the staged 'terrorist attack' was to sink stock prices and create uncertainty to force the price of gold up.
Hint: Check gold prices and stock index ratings right after 9/11 for a real world example.
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Has something to do w/ gold being the only thing that can back up all our paper currency. Gold is the only thing that has real value so when the other stocks start to fall people pump their funds into gold. O_o
shareIts actually quite possible.
Its common to leverage in FOREX or GOLD trading, spot trading goes to 100:1 leverages. So if 1 dollar can be treated like 100 dollar.. you do the math.
2.000.000 x 100 = 200.000.000
The only fake fake fake thing was the 900% raise in gold on the screen. Hardly realistic but possible I guess..
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We dont know what the scheme was, because they never confirm it. But if lets say people think terrorists are attacking.
Stocks goes down, Gold goes up.
He could have profit from both situation, but personally I think he just leveraged the 2million to buy gold to raise in price.
Absolutely. Why would the filmmakers hang on that screen image of "Gold up 890%" for so long. And as for the comment about him not being able to sell the gold until it drops is hogwash. People buy gold/commodities everyday that are on the rise. I remember gold at $300 not that long ago, and people are buying it today for $1200.
Example of senility.http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/2779/paintx.png
The original film was so much better in it' simplicity: A plain old "we will kill the passengers unless you pay us ransom" instead of convuluted plot involving the stock market and gold.
I'll Teach You To Laugh At Something's That's Funny
Homer Simpson
Totally agree, the remake was a big let down for original fans. And the scheme was much simpler to explain back then.
Still I'm surprised at how people in this thread keep mistakingly stating that Ryder used his seed money to invest in actual gold - when the Mayor specifies the real money would be made off put options. That's basically betting that a certain stock or commodity would either rise or fall, as I understand it. Like betting on a champion race horse to come in dead last, without actually betting on the race itself.
I think this also explains the crazy high jump of 890% - no that wouldn't happen to the value of gold, suddenly leaping 9x over a relatively small-change hostage situation in one city - so I think that number must have meant to reflect either his investment activity that session or his return on the put options. [yes, it did reference Gold directly] Neither makes perfect sense, nor do they add up correctly - but that's what I believe the film put forward as its plot. Silly as it was.
watch the original - it's more a comedy, another sad casualty of the remake
the mayor was guessing about the put options on stocks. the villain clearly bought gold though, either leveraged massively as suggested above, or call options/futures, knowing the price would go up that day (although the amount of the jump was crazy.)
shareLook up what “shorting a stock is.” You’re basically betting that a stocks value will decrease. Remember in the James Bond movie with Daniel Craig “Casino Royale” the villains origial plan was to massively short the airplane company’s stock, then blow up their prototype right before its demonstration. If this succeeded, the company’s stock would plummet and he’d make a killing.
share