My thoughts on Rick (from my vivid imagination):
We know he's friends or at least strong acquaintances with Carson Block. Let's at least say they're very familiar with each other. After all they did go head to head on ONP with Rick getting the short end of the confrontation.
I'm guessing at some point Rick heard through sources that Carson and his buddies knew that the audit was going poorly at CCME. Now Rick's a reporter but he can't just flat out disclose this crucial information or he'll be crucified by both the longs and the shorts (the shorts are especially mean). So he takes the middle route and issues a vague watered down warning to longs (who summarily dismiss it) and ends up buying puts in CCME. His conscious is clear, his reputation gets a boost and, heck, might as well make a few extra bucks betting on a sure thing, right?
I can understand the warning if he had a bad feeling, but the puts tell me he heard something more substantial than he let on at the time.
Rick seems like a smart guy with his heart in the right place, but I don't think he was Nostradamus or a hero here by any stretch. That being said, I wish I'd listened to him this time.
As usual, I might be completely off base here.
