San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

Great, so the lesson to learn here
1) is father leaves daughter a bunch of gold and silver from old days.
2)...and daughter, when married, tells husband to dispose of gold and silver as "junk" to a local shop guy, called "Butch"...

Lovely... I have this to look forward to. Why am I buying gold and silver again, and where is my Porsche ordering guide again?

Just kidding.. I'm just busting your chops. :)

$35/ounce for gold... Damn....I was more thinking there might some some treasures in that history of items.

I get it...So basically, a bull put spread, i think...

*It nets you $1/share (1 contract = 100 shares, knew that...) immediately...

*If stock doesn't move or rises, both put options expire, and you keep $1/share.

*If the stock tanks, to say $45/sh, you're limiting your damage, because you have to buy the stock at $52 (the put you sold), but you can sell at $47 (the put you bought)....So you're limited damage is $400 ($4/share, after the $1/share premium you were already paid)

*If the stock ends up somewhere in the middle, say at $49... The $52 gets exercised and you buy the stock at $52/share, less $1 in option premium you were already paid.

I've read about some of these option strategies a long time ago, but didn't know what they were for....

Dumb question. If one thinks the stock is going to rise, why not just buy the stock? What advantage does this put spread have over just buying? Excuse the dumb question...

The only option trading I've ever done was to either write covered calls or buy put options as a hedge against company issued stock options or RSUs that were unvested and/or nearly vesting...and that was back a long time ago, when companies didn't have so many policies about owning derivatives as an employee...So I'm curious how people are using these other strategies.

bearishgurl: seems like most of the kids mentioned in the articles are non-resident CITIZENS. Exactly how common is this? I'd think there was a limited supply of such people.

As far as non-resident, non-citizen children crossing the border to attend school daily, I think the border guards would have something to say about that - eventually.

Ok, got it, now you've added some weird personal attacks about my family and me to your false claims, anecdotes, and previously posted articles about the plight of border kids trying to get an education. Nothing you've provided qualifies as actual data. Show me a study or anything that could be considered factual that supports your claims.

Remember, you claimed we are spending "a fortune" and "billions" on the situation and that we're paying for 25% more schools, teachers and administrators in South County than necessary due to non-resident children. But I can't find anything to support that. Can you?

I'll wait. And until then, I'm not interested in going around and around so you can spout more hate about immigration and make uninformed, nasty statements about my family and me. Thank you.

Read it again, BG.

Many Mexican citizen children have documents to get across the border and back. Their parents often shop north of the border and some of them have relatives living on this side as well.

CA LAW states that students proving residency for public school attendance purposes MUST LIVE WITHIN the district AND within the attendance boundaries of the school they are attempting to enroll in. OR, successfully seek and obtain a zone transfer or interdistrict transfer from the district they are residents of or the district they wish to attend a particular school in.

Of course, one living in MEXICO is not considered a resident of ANY school district in CA. They are NON-residents.

Citizenship of the students or their parents has no bearing on whether daily border crossers are entitled to attend public school in CA or TX. ONLY "residency" does.

Not a dumb question at all. In fact, it's one that I've asked 100 times. As it happens, the woman sitting next to me has made a living trading futures and options for the last 5 or 6 years. And I'm following her lead. It has to do with use of capital....even though I'm sitting with a lot of cash, I have these derivative non-cash positions that are hopefully making me money. I'm not convinced it's the right thing.

Diamonds (Dow ETF) is now paying about 2.754% I think. She convinced me that instead of buying a few hundred shares, I should sell a wide put spread and take in (at current volatility) about $100 a month. That's $12/yr on a $175 stock that I haven't actually bought. 6.66% is a pretty decent return. Now if I had actually bought it, or it gets put to me, i'd sell covered calls against it every month. I'd limit my upside but increase yield to upwards towards 10%.

As I said, I follow her. I ask her the same question at least once a month. And she's way smarter than I am. So I listen. (And she doesn't read here, so I don't score any points by saying that.)

You're crying "wolf" now. No one has "attacked" you or your family. It is very, very difficult to explain this situation to someone who has never experienced anything like this in the schools their own children attended. School starts around here on July 20 this year, I believe. Wait until August 1-3, after all the students have successfully matriculated into the new school year and simply drive thru one of the South County high school student parking lots for yourself (around 10:00 - 10:30 am is best as all the spaces will be filled at that time). Try to observe the percentage of license plates of parked cars which have Baja, CA license plates. (Of course, this does not account for all the Mexican students dropped off and picked up daily or who ride the trolley and bus from and to the the border every day, but it's a start.) Until you see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears, you won't be able to truly understand the depth and breadth of the problem. You may choose whichever HS you want to visit. While you're here, you may as well visit the parking lots of at least two!

The problem is that South County public school administrators and the teacher's union like the "status quo" because it keeps all of them in a job and padding their defined benefit pensions year after year just by virtue of occupying their positions. So they're not going to be too helpful with actual "statistics" and they most certainly know (or have a very close approximation of) exactly what they are! Regardless of what students and their parents/"guardians" are claiming on their bogus "guardianship affidavits." I would be interested to know the percentage of "guardianship affidavits" which were filed this past year within CVESD and SUHSD (and prior years for comparison, if that info is available) in relation to the number of enrolled students each district actually has. I mean, seriously, what is the true percentage of US-resident kids who are actually residing with a "guardian" instead of their parent(s)?

We all KNOW that there is no such thing as a "border kid." What is the reason behind using that euphemism, carli? Political correctness, perhaps?? A kid attending a CA public school in SD or Imperial County either resides in Mexico or resides in the US ... end of story. The border is a thin strip of land where no one resides. A kid can't live in both countries at the same time, unless their OWN parents actually OWN or RENT residential property on this side of the border and it is furnished and available at whim for ALL the members of their family to come here and occupy it on any given day of the year (meaning NOT leased out to a third party) and they DO occupy it during the school year as their principal residence. There ARE a few homes like this in South County but they are mostly owned by Mexico City and Guadalajara residents, NOT residents of Tijuana and other border cities. And these families only spend 2-3 weeks per year actually using the home. Their minor children (if they have any) are schooled in Mexico.

None of these non-resident daily border-crossing kids stealing seats from SD County schools are in a "plight." They can and should be getting their educations in Tijuana and surrounds ... where they RESIDE. CA taxpayers owe them nothing.

BG, your personal experience is clearly a powerful force in influencing your opinions, but it is not a valid substitute for data, for obvious reasons. You chose to cite a very specific number - 25% - and you stated that we are spending "billions" on this problem. Please cite any data or research at all that supports your claims. Thank you.

Sorry, I'm not following the 10% yield using covered calls. Care to explain? I'm really slow about these things....

When you first mentioned $1/premium a share....I was wondering why are you doing this for a $1/share...But then you put it into a bigger context for me $12/year for a $175/share... I never thought about it this way.

Just curious, I think I know, but what are the worst case scenarios wrto downside risk, beyond what you already sort of highlighted with the example with T?

I guess, I'm just wondering that if you happen to be in a situation in which the stock prices falls below the put you wrote, but above the put you bought, chances are you have to buy the stock....What is your exit strategy at that point? Your own the stock, your put option you bought is out of money (although unexpired).. Now what?

Also, for a company like ATT that is playing close to a 5% dividend, does the ex-dividend date play any role into when you implement your strategy... Do you try to get the dividend, do you try to avoid the dividend buy doing your transactions after the ex-dividend date, or does it not matter?

I appreciate you sharing...I was just reminded there are a lot of smarter people out their in this world than me, lol....

bearishgurl: the number of kids that:
(1) have US citizenship
(2) live in Mexico
and (3) go to school in the US,

is probably an edge case since all three conditions need met.

I missed an important step. On the DIA trade, which is where the "$12/yr for a $175/share" came in, I didn't mention that I'm rolling it every month. The sweet spot is getting in at about 45 days from expiration, and I try to roll at about 15 days. Rolling spreads can be difficult sometimes, particularly when trying to adjust the strikes. Often, I end up buying the current month back and selling the next month. I had orders in to roll spreads in 3 different accounts all day Thurs & Friday and couldn't get a fill. It was slightly early because I was trying to take advantage of the higher following month volatility. I'll probably buy them all back on Monday and sell Aug spreads at whatever strikes make sense.

SK, if you don't mind can we continue our discussion here?

http://piggington.com/ot_are_you_doing_a...

I'm going to rename this thread, the Donald Trump/Illegal Alien Bitch and Moan Thread.

Limit Risk OR ability to Leverage.
Understanding options is a completely different way of viewing the stock market.
Think of options as insurance. Anybody has the choice to be the insured party (pay the premium)
OR
be the insurance company (collect the premium)
AND you decide how long you want exposure.

when buying options, you can never lose more than what you pay for the option.
(Selling options has different risk)

On Thursday GLD (Gold ETF) $120 Calls for Friday expiration were about $1.00.(1 contract for $100) allowed you to benefit on the move for about 10 ounces of Gold.
Buying 10 ounces of gold was $12,600.

As it turns out, on Friday the move in gold meant that
the $1 option on Thursday was worth $6 on Friday.
($500 profit on $100 investment)
The $12,600 investment was worth about $13,200.
($600 profit on $12,600 investment)

If gold had dropped $60, you would have lost $600 holding gold and only lost $100 if you had options.

Instead of selling covered calls, you can buy calls and sell calls against them to create almost as much income
with less risk.

Many 401K plans do not allow you to short the market, so options can be used to benefit/offset from a downturn.

Buying calls does not allow you to collect dividends vs. if you owned the stock.
When selling calls on a dividend paying stock, you run the risk of having the option exercised early and you can be responsible for paying the dividend although you are not collecting the dividend.

Understanding the risks, it's possible to make money from the stock market without ever actually owning any stock.
Also, an easy way to control hundreds of ounces of gold, silver etc with limited downside risk and unlimited upside risk.
Options are much less risky than stocks when understood.

I've noted that flu changed the title of this thread so I'm going to make this short. Anyone who has read a few of my posts should know I'm an independent that dislikes and distrusts both the Republicans and the Dems. I think there are reasonable arguments on the many sides of the immigration debate. I personally believe that the current population of undocumented immigrants in the US imposes an economic burden rather than a net economic benefit. The size of the burden, whether it exists, and whether we as a country should shoulder it, are all reasonable questions to consider.

FWIW - I have spent hundreds of hours volunteering my time in school and community programs that assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds. I have no question about the value of education, but according to your point of view we should just pay to educate the whole world because we would all be better off. Nice, but unreasonable.

Sorry flu.

Njtosd, we are not educating the whole world. We are educating kids who are here and part of us.

And so what if they live part time in Mexico? They are here and will be working here.

Um, except they don't live "part time" in Mexico. They live full-time in Mexico and will continue to live full-time in Mexico. The vast majority of their parents can't afford to live on the US side of the border. And they have kept coming, year after year ... for decades. We have a never-ending supply of students who live out of the country filling up our public schools here in SD County. And for those who graduate from high school, completing their A-G requirements for CA public university entrance (and other language and science requirements for the UC, depending on declared major), they can and do take seats from US-citizen applicants in the CSU/UC systems (often with Pell Grants and Cal Grants funded by US and CA taxpayers). Add those freshman applicants (many are "Dream Act" applicants just by virtue of their CA HS diploma) to all the other CSU/UC applicants with foreign HS diplomas and out-of-state HS diplomas and we have a situation here in CA where we have tens of thousands of qualified US citizen HS graduates (born and raised in CA) who applied to multiple campuses of the CSU/UC, were not accepted to ANY campus and are essentially "stuck" in CC until such time they can get admitted to a CA public university as a junior. Which may or may not be the semester/quarter after they obtain their associate degrees .... assuming "life" doesn't get in the way while they're waiting. This group will NOT necessarily be able to earn an associate degree in two years, either. That all depends on the impaction of the particular CC they are attending and their willingness and ability to travel to another county CC to obtain their missing credits for their Associate of Transfer degree (favorite alternatives around here are Grossmont and Cuyamaca Colleges). Here in Chula Vista, SWC is terribly impacted. The recent "improvements" ($75M in voter-approved bond funds?) to the campus did NOT increase classroom space or class facilities. Hundreds of former "border crossing" local high school students (now graduates) can and do attend SWC while still residing in Mexico. The vast majority of this group of students undoubtedly qualify for fee waivers due to hailing from "very low income" households.

In short, FIH is claiming these thousands of students crossing the border every day to receive free (K-12) or nearly free (CC) educations in the US are "part of us" and are going to "work in the US." That isn't necessarily true. They have to be able to support themselves in the US and their "brethren" who were born and raised in the US can't even support themselves in their own hometowns! And the US born and raised group typically has more "prosperous parents!"

Here in Cali, we have essentially been allowing Mexicans (in the border counties, the vast majority live in MX and never lived in the US, except as a "temporary guest" in someone else's home) to use up our educational resources, court resources, social service resources, medical care, Federal food aid and to take up 40% or more of our state prison cells while US born and raised citizens wait in line with them for same finite services and number of seats (except to occupy prisons). Cali has been bulging at the seams with "undocumented aliens" and "anchor babies" for decades. The vast majority of "anchor babies" never lived in the US but were born in the US for the sole reason of getting their piece of the American pie when they turn 18 ... and they and their parents admit this! Actually, they're quite overt about it! I'm sure Congress didn't consider what could happen in the second half of the 20th century when they crafted section 1 the 14th Amendment and added it to our Constitution. Of course, at that time, there was no such thing as "illegal immigration!"

You can talk to ANY county supervisor or mayor in this state (as well as the state treasurer on up to the governor) and they will ALL tell you the exact same thing that I am regurgitating here and have posted here in the recent and distant past. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will unless something is actually DONE about this (seemingly intractable) problem.

You can start by contacting your local reps here in the "border counties." They ALL have a front and center box seat to Cali's budget travails (which trickle on down to its counties and cities) and can intelligently discuss the causes with you. A short and simplistic answer would be that they are 65% due to rampant, unchecked, illegal immigration (and Federal birthright citizenship as a smaller byproduct) and 35% due to Prop 13 and its progeny, Props 58 and 193.

spd, there is no such thing as an "edge case," here. In order to LEGALLY attend public school in CA and TX, the student has to be a RESIDENT of said school district (unless they obtained an inter-district transfer from another school district). In ALL cases, they must be a RESIDENT of said county and state they are seeking eligibility to attend public school in. Students whose families live in Mexico (a foreign country) do not qualify, unless their parent(s) agree to a payment schedule with the school district for payment of monthly tuition for each of their students (in CA ... not sure if this applies to TX).

BG, they go to school here, they work here... They have family here.
Even people who live in Tijuana contribute to our economy, reach and power. You can think of the San Diego Tijuana region as mutually beneficial big economic block. I love the concept of a binational airport and increased binational commerce. We should break down barriers, not build walls.

It doesn't bother me when American born citizens sponsor their non US citizen relatives. They will come here and contribute.

Why does it matter where the kids are? Education is a great thing. We should take care of everyone. I think it's a little small minded to let territorial boundaries get in the way. Kids in Chihuahua are closer to me than the ones in Maine. Why should We discriminate at all? All children deserve the best.

spd, there is no such thing as an "edge case," here.

I'm saying the number of students that meet all three conditions approaches zero.

You are in favor of open borders. Period. Why can't you just come out and say it?

The use of the terms, "edge case," "border kids," "they are here," "they are part of us" and references to student living in both the US and MX simultaneously (which is impossible, btw, unless they're living out of their backpacks) are nothing more than attempts at "PC obfuscations" of the real issue which is that thousands of foreign students who reside in another country are stealing classroom seats from US citizen residents who actually reside in the attendance area of said school. This has been going on for decades in broad daylight with multiple "professional" witnesses every day. This results in a multitude of problems, nearly all which are profound and cost US and state taxpayers a fortune.

a) a student moving into the attendance area of a particular school being denied a seat at that school due to overcrowding. Their parents may or may not be paying exorbitant Mello Roos which was used to build and fund improvements at their neighborhood schools;

b) a US citizen, RESIDENT English-speaking elementary school student is placed at their grade level in their neighborhood school where 3.5 out of 4 classes offered at their grade level are comprised of ESL students, effectively holding back the progress of the 10-12 native English speakers at that grade level in that school;

c) the presence of a majority of ESL students at a particular elementary or middle school effectively lowers the test scores and ratings of that school, often so profoundly that the school is eventually placed on the NCLB "watch list" making it possible for nearly ALL its native English-speaking RESIDENT students to flee that school for a more distant, better performing school in the district; and,

d) The districts' budgets have been so compromised in past decades (since about the mid-nineties) that art, music and PE has all but been eliminated in elementary and middle schools. The few teachers the districts employ in these subjects must travel from school to school and teach these classes 2-4x month to the students. This contributes to the childhood obesity epidemic, IMO. Mello Roos bonds can be used to pay for gym equipment, etc, but instead has been deployed to pay for (expensive) ESL materials for the masses.

Allowing daily border-crossing students (mostly non-English speaking in the lower grades) to use our schools is simply facilitating a race to the bottom for nearly all the residents of the district and moreso as the years go on. Homes in areas where the public schools are overrun with ESL students do not maintain their values as well or appreciate as well as other parts of the county where this problem isn't as pronounced (or is nonexistent).

And a large portion of teachers in South County can retire today with 30 years service and get pensions equivalent to full pay, yet they are still working, ESPecially in CVESD. (So it would be fine if we had to shut down 4-6 elementary schools due to disenrollment of a huge portion of the student population due to lack of proof of bona-fide residency.) Another large group trails them with 25+ years of service. These teachers are very good at what they do ... getting these thousands of ESL students English literate before entering middle school. It is very challenging and they are very patient and skilled in their jobs. And I could see South County closing 2-3 middle schools and possibly 2 high schools if stricter rules at the border were enforced, along with stricter rules for proving residency.

Currently, no identification is asked for or required of an adult who comes into a school or the district office to register a student for school and prove their residency. The adult doing this (1) does not have to prove who they are; (2) does not have to prove it is their name of the utility bills, leases, deed, closing docs, guardianship affidavit, etc, which they are presenting to establish their student's residency; (3) does not have to prove they are related to the student in any way; and (4) does not have to prove that it was they who actually executed a "guardianship affidavit" used to establish the student's residency. They could be using someone else's documents and as long as the name of the guardian on the guardianship affidavit matches the name on ONE utility bill and that affidavit lists their "charge" with the name of the student they are attempting to register, they're golden! Essentially, the registering adult could be anyone! There are so many holes in the procedure and almost no guardians have the same last name as the student they are registering. It is a red flag that so many "guardianship affidavits" are accepted by the school/district relative to the general student population but the administration doesn't care. In addition, some schools actually use student workers in the office to verify residency!

I personally have gone into my kids' HS numerous times to "prove residency" for my student to student workers and/or 20-something school office workers with their dad's utility bills and residency verification form HE filled out and signed because he had a very demanding job. He is a male and I am a female. They don't know me and never asked me my name. The bills weren't for my address and they could care less. They just compare the documents with a list of acceptable documents taped to the counter and accept them. My student kid was never with me (they were usually in class at the time) and there was no one there to call me "mom."

But still no evidence to support your outrageous "25%" claim?

It's not outrageous. Why don't you come visit some family here and take a few HS parking lot drive-bys yourself? The first week of August would be perfect! You're another one that has lived too far from the border to have ever experienced anything like this. Come on down!

Better yet, park at the San Ysidro trolley stop at 6:00 am on any school morning and watch the throngs of kids with backpacks on walk in from MX (or get dropped off) and board the trolley. And the next. And the next. Better yet, arrive at 5:45 a.m. and stay at least a full hour to get a more accurate portrayal of what exactly is going on here. If you really wanted to obtain a full understanding of the problem, you could spend a week here and plant yourself at all the trolley stops between SY and 8th St (NC) starting at 6:15 a.m. and see how many kids with backpacks get off at each and every stop for a full hour (4 trolleys).

Hint #1: If you're squeezed for time, most of the border-crossing students will disembark the trolley at Iris Ave, Palomar and H Street, where they will immediately board a SD or CV Transit bus.

Hint #2: Few "resident" students in South County take the trolley to school. They get dropped off by private vehicle, take the school bus or take a city bus (CV or NC bus). But they don't catch city buses at the trolley station. They catch them near their homes.

So I guess that's a no? No actual evidence? Just anecdotes? You know that's not the same as data, right?

Work the math.

San Diego school district apparently has 130,000 students. Probably 200,000 counting suburban schools outside the city.

How many kids are in those "throngs"? What is the capacity of a trolley?

The trolleys seem to run three-car trains, with I'd say a sitting/standing capacity of 100 per trolley car. Say the pertinent period is two hours, and there are eight trolleys per hour on the line during rush hour (apparently frequency is 1x per 7.5 minutes).

100 x 3 x 8 x 2 = 4800 people. Assuming 50% of each trolley car is full of border-crossing students (a high estimate), that's 2400 kids per day.

About 1.2% of the entire student population of the county. They're also mostly linguistically homogeneous (Spanish as primary language, vs possibility of local languages only if originating from further south in .mx), so teaching them English should be easy vs a more polyglot student population.

Am I missing something?

Yes. You're missing the thousands of private vehicles sporting Baja CA plates crossing the border every morning and dropping kids off for school ... even as far as SD and East County (but usually those further school destinations are because the driving parent works near those schools). And you're also missing hundreds ... maybe over 1000 private vehicles with Baja plates being driven over the border every morning by high school students themselves and parked in the student parking lot of the school they're attending.

Re: the trolley, you are almost correct, except:

In the early morning (5:30 to 6:00 am) there are likely more students boarding the trolley at SY than workers.

When students disembark at Iris and Palomar to catch buses, other students from MX get on to disembark at a station further north. Their parent dropped them off or will pick them up in the afternoon at these stations to go to their own jobs or shop before meeting their kids in the afternoon.

The border crossing students start boarding the trolley at SY about 5:30 am but the big crowds are between 6:00 am and 7:00 am. In South County, the latest any elementary school starts is about 8:30 am but most start before 8:00 am. MS/HS start 1st period earlier (7:15 am to 7:45 am).

So the "pertinent period" is about 1.5 to 2 hrs in the morning BUT you were only counting boardings at SY. You are not accounting for boardings further north on the blue line.

Your estimate of the student population is low for the entire county but high for the affected districts. I can get you the relevant figures of the four actual school districts the vast majority of border crossing students are attending.

By my revised estimate: 2400 students on the trolleys coming from the southernmost station near the border.

"Thousands" crossing by car driven by their parents. Say 3000?

"A thousand" by car driven by students themselves.

We're up to 6400 students, or 3.2% of entire student population. If it's concentrated in certain districts, it doesn't seem to be a county-wide issue, and the total number of students is relatively small compared to county population.

The cars driven by parents often have 3-4 students in each vehicle (not necessarily related but were driven into the US together). The "regular" cars/vans that used to park on my street for years (where the adult would get out, often carrying a baby or pushing a stroller) usually had 3-6 student-kids with her whom she walked thru the back gate of the elementary school every morning. Parents/relatives do not make their onerous trek into the US early in the morning without taking as many kids as possible with them. We had four "regular" vehicles every school year and sometimes six with Baja plates which would be parked in the same place every school morning to walk kids onto the school grounds and pick them up in the afternoon (total of 40-50 minutes of parking per day). This went on the entire time I lived there (12 years). High school kids also drive their relatives and neighbors over the border and to school (even if it is a different school, due to age of the passengers).

The relevant Districts that have the vast majority of these border crossing students enrolled are:

South Bay Union School District (K-6): 6000 (approx)
Chula Vista Elementary School District (K-6): 29,300
Sweetwater Union High School District (7-12): 42,000
National School District (K-6): 3000 (approx)

That's a total of approximately 80,300 students. I would take an educated guess that over 90% of the border crossing students into SD County every morning attend public school in one of the above districts. The other 10% are spread out in public schools elsewhere in the county which are closer to a parent's workplace.

I did not include CUSD (Coronado) because they are much stricter about granting interdistrict transfers and enrollment/residency issues over there. Therefore, I feel it is unlikely that more than a handful (if any) daily "border crossing students" were able to pass thru their "vetting system."