More 9-11 Denier Logic

Here's a new movie called Open Complicity from the Ann Arbor 9-11 Deniers group. I watched about fifteen minutes of it, and as the original poster at Google video notes, those are fifteen pretty dull minutes indeed. I'll watch more when I get a chance, but for now I wanted to address some of the illogic shown early.

First, the film claims that "only" those stocks affected by 9-11 had unusual trading patterns in the days leading up to the attacks. This is absurd, and indeed, if it were true, it would be exceedingly unusual in and of itself. Of course, what the film really means to say is that nobody paid any attention to unusual trading in other stocks because those stocks were not impacted by 9-11. The film goes on to claim that since only the particular stocks impacted by 9-11 had unsual trading patterns, the odds against this occuring by chance were astronomical. The usual misuse of statistics from the Deniers, in other words.

The film goes on to claim that the profits from the pre-911 trades were never collected, and thus whoever did the trading lost their initial investments. This is just an example of how little 9-11 conspiracy theorists know about stock markets in general and put options in particular. While it is true that the SF Chronicle reported that the options had not been cashed in an article dated 9/29/01, the reason for that is quite simple. The options had not expired.

The Expiration Date is the month in which the option expires. All options expire on the third Friday of the month unless that Friday is a holiday, then the options expire on Thursday.

As noted in the film, the purchasers of the put options did not purchase the options that would have risen most in value (i.e., short-term put options), so clearly they had purchased put options expiring after September. And when put options expire with a profit that profit is not lost; the deal is simply unwound by crediting the buyer of the put option with the difference between the strike price and the share price as of the close of business on the expiration date (and debiting the seller of the put option the same amount).

Hilariously, the film attributes the fact that the options had not been sold as "nothing if not a sign of guilty conscience". Yeah, these folks were willing to profit on an event that killed thousands of Americans, and yet when it came time to take the money they suddenly felt guilty?