Joe Lewis and Bear Stearns

I haven't seen this mentioned in most of the articles about Joe Lewis continuing to buy shares of Bear Stearns.

Take a look at the Schedule 13D filed by Joe Lewis and his apparently related companies.

Scroll down to item 5. You can see that almost all of the shares were "acquired pursuant to exercise of options by option counterparty."

In other words, those shares got "put" to him, at prices between $90 and $110. Bear closed today at $88.

It's possible that he meant to acquire the shares that way - so that he collects a premium and then buys the shares. But it's also possible that he thought that the stock had bottomed.

Any way you slice it, selling those $110 puts was a losing trade.