Deriving Options

What do olive presses, Las Vegas, and random walks have in common? The Black-Scholes Option Pricing model! A really interesting Veritasium video walks through a brief history of options and the mathematics behind the Black-Scholes model. And while the video does a good job of explaining option basics, it also discusses some of the beauty behind the math.

Project Titan(ic)

In 2014, Apple was rumored to have approved Project Titan, Apple's development of an electric car. In 2015, Apple formally introduced the new project. At its height in 2018, Project Titan employed 5,000 people. Now, nearly a decade later after it started, Apple announced that it is shutting down Project Titan, thereby exercising the option to abandon. With shrinking demand for electric cars, Apple must have believed that spending more money on the new car isn't worth the payoff, even though Apple had reportedly already spent more than $10 billion on the project. We will likely see a write off announcement in the next several months detailing the total spent on the project. Apple has utilized another option as it also announced that many of the Project Titan employees would begin working on AI technology. Fortunately for Apple, it doesn't appear the money spent on this project will sink the company.

NYCB Dividend Cut

Banks stocks are generally affected by interest rates and New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) is no different. NYCB has a large amount of loans tied to New York City apartments and commercial real estate. With high interest rates, New York City rent control policies, and changing demand for commercial real estate in New York City, investors are concerned about the bank's future performance. On January 31, 2024, the company announced that it would slash its quarterly dividend from 4.17 to $.05, a 70 percent cut. Investors were none too pleased as the stock dropped from $10.38 to $6.47, a 37 percent fall in one day. To see this, check out the stock price chart from finance.yahoo.com below.