anyone looking at long dated puts, maybe jan 11'?

LEAPs on what product? You have to specify the ticker.

Alternately, there is the potential for doing a bear put trade if your target is a little more closer to home.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1940&p=13153#p13153

my targets for some/most of the banks is new lows by jan 11' and mass bankruptcy in the ensuing months. the leaps don't trade enough volume though. when my upside targets are in clear view (expecting ~ year end), i'm rolling out of longs and right now looking at srs/tza/skf for liquidity on 10^6 bet sizes.

under the most grim scenarios, do you or anyone have an idea of the probability that the currency will retain value and be stronger, as we might expect in the early/mid stages of a sell-off? clearly the dollar will strengthen soon in tandem, as a result of, or as a compounding factor to a market decline, and while the odds may be low, if the us defaults on debt, will the currency retain value?

Here is an image from my broker. The dollar remains in a downwards channel.

To put things in additional context, I have added the Eurodollar futures charts where you can track the effect of easy Fed money (bullish ED = low rates).

For the ED generation chart, note how bearish ED corresponded w/the hawkish Fed of Volker. There really exists no political will in Congress - indeed in the entire developed world - to suggest an interest rate hike.

Pressure to raise rates will come instead from the emerging markets where they import inflation through currency pegs and trade imbalances designed around commodity exports. For ex, Australia (not really an emerging mkt but a key commodity exporter due to its generous bounty of mineral wealth and Chinese trade ties) has already raised rates. Chinese officials also talked down markets earlier on Monday w/word of monetary tightening -- although my suspicion is that they are just jawboing.