Please come to hear me,?Mad Hedge Fund Trader?John Thomas, as the keynote speaker at the?Invest Like a Monster Las Vegas Conference?on June 13-14.

I will be joined by many old friends from across the investment spectrum. Jon and Pete Najarian will teach you the tricks of the trade for navigating the ever complex options markets.

Fellow former combat pilot, Chuck Hughes, will go into depth on his own highly successful approach to trading the market. To listen to my in depth interview with him on?Hedge Fund Radio, please?click here.

Well known market commentator Guy Adami, the Prince of New Jersey, will be there to give his trading insights. So will former hedge fund manager and Yahoo Finance guru Jeff Macke.

The first day will be devoted to three educational sessions that get into the nitty gritty of trading options. The day winds up with a cocktail party with the Najarian Brothers and me.

I will kick off the Saturday session with and extended presentation on the long-term future of the financial markets, to be followed by an extensive question and answer session. I will be followed by an impressive lineup of market veterans.

The event will be held at the?Bellagio Hotel?on the Strip, my favorite Las Vegas haunt, best known for its spectacular water fountains out front. You may recognize it in the hit movies?The Hangover?and?Ocean?s Eleven.

General admission costs $499 for the two full days. You can buy a VIP ticket for $699, which includes social events with the high and the mighty. It is all great value for the money, given the quality and quantity of the information you will obtain. Just click here: http://www.optionmonster.com/events/?refId=186?to buy tickets.

Trademonster?s proprietary program, called Heat Seeker ?, monitors no less than 180,000 trades a second to give an early warning of large trades that are about to hit the stock, options, and futures markets. To give you an idea of how much data this is, think of downloading the entire contents of the Library of Congress, about 20 terabytes, every 33 minutes.

The firm maintains a 10 gigabyte per second conduit that transfers data at 6,000 times the speed of a T-1 line, the fastest such pipe in the civilian world. The firm then distills this ocean of data into the top movers of the day, which is put up for free on its website, and offers much more detailed analysis through a premium subscription product.

?As with the NFL,? says Jon, ?you can?t defend against speed?. The system catches big hedge funds, pension funds, and mutual funds shifting large positions, giving subscribers a peak at the bullish or bearish tilt of the market. It also offers accurate predictions of imminent moves in single stock and index volatility.

Jon started his career as a linebacker for the Chicago Bears, and I can personally attest that he still has a handshake that?s like a steel vice grip. Maybe it was his brute strength that enabled him to work as pit trader on the Chicago Board of Options Exchange for 22 years, where he was known by his floor call letters of ?DRJ.? He formed Mercury Trading in 1989 and then sold it to the mega hedge fund, Citadel, in 2004.

Jon developed his patented algorithms for Heat Seeker? with his brother Pete, another NFL player (Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Minnesota Vikings), who like Jon, is a regular face in the financial media.

June is a great time to visit Sin City, as the crowds are largely gone and the sun is wonderfully baking hot. You can ride the neck-breaking roller coaster at the New York New York Hotel, catch one of eight?Cirque du Soleil?shows, and ride a gondola at the Venetian Hotel.

Or you can try to get a great deal on a luxury item from my buddy, Rick Harrison, at the famous?Gold and Silver Pawn, of?Pawn Stars?fame (good luck with that!).

Just be sure to bring extra sun tan lotion!

Hanging with the Big Dogs in Vegas

I often get asked where I obtain the sources for my endless flood of interesting information.

For example, this week I will be meeting with the former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, the prime ministers of Greece and Australia, Mohamed El-Erian, formerly the co-head of bond giant PIMCO, Michael J. Fox of Flashboys and Moneyball fame, hedge fund legends Daniel Loeb and Leon Cooperman, leading short seller Jim Chanos, General Keith Alexander of US Cyber Command, oilman T. Boone Pickens, George W. Bush political advisor Karl Rove, former defense secretary Chuck Hegel, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and comedian Rob Reiner, one of the original actors in All in the Family.

Suffice it to say, I get around a bit.

As I always do at this time of the year, I will be spending the rest of this week attending the 7^th annual SALT conference at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. This is the preeminent annual get together of the major players in the hedge fund industry.

There, I will hook up with readers, consulting clients, old pals and former staff, many of whom now run their own multi billion-dollar hedge funds. I could write a letter entirely composed of tips from my former employees, and it would be a damn fine one too.

On Friday, May 8, I will sneak away for a few hours to present my own Las Vegas Global Strategy Luncheon to a select group of Mad Hedge Fund Trader subscribers. There are still a few tickets available. Just click here to purchase one.

SALT is organized by my old friend, Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, which manages and advises over $10 billion of hedge fund assets.

According to the terms of my invitation, I am not permitted to directly quote, record, or photograph any of the speakers. Such an off-the-record format enables them to open up and share thoughts on what?s really happening in today?s complex markets.

But as readers of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader you will greatly benefit from whatever views and hard factual information I pick up in future letters. It is a level of access you can?t obtain elsewhere.

The SkyBridge Alternatives (SALT) Conference is committed to facilitating balanced discussions and debates on macro-economic trends, geo-political events and alternative investment opportunities within the context of a dynamic global economy.

With over 2,000 thought leaders, business professionals, hedge fund managers, and investors from over 26 countries and 6 continents, the SALT Conference provides an unmatched opportunity for attendees from around the world to connect with global leaders and network with industry peers.

 

Over the course of the program, more than 100 speakers will participate in some three-dozen panels, speeches and breakout sessions that address critical geopolitical and economic issues. The agenda is designed to provide multiple perspectives on a variety of salient topics within the context of a dynamic global economy.

For more information about the SALT Conference, please visit their website at http://www.saltconference.com.