Large Hadron Collider Starts Up, Earth Suvives, End of the World Puts Plummet

From NewScientist:
Working LHC produces first images

Protons have made their first complete lap of the world’s most powerful accelerator to cheers and high fives from assembled physicists.

At 1025 (local time) scientists sent a single beam of protons in a clockwise direction around the full 27 kilometres of the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

The journey began at 0930 when LHC project leader Lyn Evans and his team launched protons into the ring. Progress was made in short steps of a few kilometres, so that physicists could learn how to steer the beam, which is travelling at 99.9998% the speed of light....MORE

Enlarge image

Some of the first protons to be accelerated inside the Large Hadron Collider smashed into an absorbing device called a collimator at near light speed, producing a shower of particle debris recorded in this image. About an hour later the beam completed a full circuit of the 27km tunnel, to cheers from physicists (Image: CERN)

Checking in on the financial play from last April:

The markets responded-

From Long or Short Capital:

July 2008 LHC End of the Universe Puts

...That is why Long or Short is now offering LHC End of the Universe Puts. It’s a simple put option wherein the buyer retains the write to sell the Universe at a strike price of “Existing”. Based on our Black-Holes model used to value all “end of the world” options, the July 2008 vintage options are currently priced at $20....

UPDATE: The marketers at LoS Capital* are still pushing product:

...We continue to reiterate the importance of LHC End of the Universe Puts.

“The LHC is a discovery machine,” said CERN Director General Robert Aymar

If this is true and you extrapolate it out, it is only a matter of time until they discover the end of the Earth and existence as we know it. Who is to say they won’t do that tomorrow? Again, not us.

Recommendation: These securities do NOT benefit from the implicit guarantee of the US government, God or your locally relevant deity. Wink wink nudge nudge, but between you and me, they DO.

*At Long or Short LLC, we leverage our superior intellect and extensive investing experience to recommend explicit Long or Short positions and related abstract trades, which may or may not be possible with real world financial derivatives. We use science to improve the lives of the rich.
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