we are for the most part finished with sec var . we are missing october and december brent crude commodity positions . when we get these numbers we will reissue this report , but they are not likely to be different enough from the guesses we inserted to make a difference . total var is the highest i have seen at $ 92 million . one reason is that trading commodities var remains very high at $ 66 million ( though it is down from the $ 81 million of november ) . the other reason is that trading securities var is by far the highest it has been at $ 63 million . merchant assets ( with a var of $ 29 million ) and total return swaps ( with a var of $ 56 , up from $ 24 in november ) are at all time highs . bacchus and riva ( both originated in december ) conspired to increase total return swap var . nevertheless , the biggest culprit is cerberus ( a fixed for eog shares swap we put on in november ) . cerberus contains ten million unhedged shares of eog . the value of the shares increased from $ 42 in november to $ 55 in december , raising var substantially . regards , eugenio