Facing Life with a Lethal Gene

The gene that will kill Ms. Moser sits on the short arm of everyone's fourth chromosome, where the letters of the genetic alphabet normally repeat C-A-G as many as 35 times in a row. In people who develop Huntington's [disease], however, there are more than 35 repeats.

NYT

S&P 500, year to date

Back near the turn of the year, I bought an 18-month barrier option that returns the absolute value of net change of the S&P 500 at expiry provided that index neither rises nor falls 20% before expiry. If the barrier is reached above or below at any time before expiry, it returns the principal I paid, no matter what the S&P 500 is at expiry.

Kind of a funky investment, but it's fun to watch in an irrational sort of way.

The diagram shows the YTD S&P 500 average. When the graph seemed to be on an inexorable upward wave-like track for several weeks after I bought the option, I thought—yuck, what a bad idea—this thing is just going to run up 20% in a few months, then break the barrier, and Deutsche Bank is going to calmly collect interest on my principal for 18months and return it to me. Might as well have bought a CD, or bought the stupid S&P myself in a mutual fund.

Then came the cliff, and the average returned back to roughly the level of the starting price at the time I bought it, and in fact even 1% below it. So now I'm happy with this little investment curio again. "Maybe it will close down 15%, and they'll have to pay me that 15% after all," I think, gleefully, ignoring that I'm also long equities in other parts of our portfolio.

It's hard to be rational about this stuff. I just like watching it in a lava-lamp kind of way.