Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: <Uninformed crap> Its worth pointing out that a complaint to an editor is not necessarily pressure. Did the Whitehouse threaten to sue HotWired? What _pressure_ was applied? I find Meeks' style somewhat tiresome. It is tabloid jornalism rather than reasoned argument. His dislike for the Clinton is well known - he recently accused the administration of being fascist. I know of no evidence that the Clinton administration has a genocide policy, it is an insult to the 10 million civilians murdered by Hitler to use the term facist simply as a term of abuse, especialy if it is being used as a substitute for an argument. Point of fact: the skeleton closet does not know how traded options work. If one sells a traded option one is liable to pay the broker if the market moves the opposite way to that hoped for. Normally the broker asks a client to put up a deposit or "margin" to ensure that the broker can recoup the money. In this case the broker knew that Hilary had good credit and so accepted only a token deposit as "margin". Had the market moved in the opposite direction Hillary would have been liable for very much more than $1000, she was liable for hundreds of thousands. In most cases it is profitable to sell options, it is only if the market moves in the "wrong" direction that one can lose out. In such cases the losses are unlimited - the potential profit being fixed. This is why most punters buy options - the potential loss is limited. You can see a similar effect in the market each time there is a "short squeeze". A lot of people bet on Netscape going down in price because it was overvalued. The number of short positions turned out to be higher than the number of shares on offer which meant that many people were having to buy shares at high prices to cover their positions. This is how lack of confidence in a stock can send it through the roof. The free market - don't you just love it? Phill