The "up-to-the-minute Market Data" thread

reply to post by Rockpuck


It was definitely a calculated move IMO.

But the thing is I watched it fall only around 50 points at a time like in 20 second intervals.

So if it was one trade I find it hard to believe that it would keep dropping like that and just not in one swoop totally dislocate everything.

Also, who the hell was buying at those numbers in SP 500 Futures? All of those trades still stood except for that mini halt I am hearing. I can't wait to see these time and sales figures.

[edit on 6-5-2010 by GreenBicMan]

A number of high-frequency firms stopped trading Thursday in the midst of the market plunge, possibly adding to the market's unprecedented selloff.

Tradebot Systems Inc., a large high-frequency firm based in Kansas City, Mo., closed down its computer trading systems when the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped about 500 points, said Dave Cummings, founder and chairman of the firm.

Tradeworx Inc., a N.J. firm that operates a high-frequency fund, also stopped trading during the market turmoil, according to a person familiar with the firm.

Mr. Cummings said Tradebot's system is designed to stop trading when the market becomes too volatile, too fast.

"That's what we do for safety," he said. "If the market's weird, we don't want to compound the problem."

Tradebot says it often accounts for about 5% of U.S. stock-market trading volume.

The withdrawal of high-frequency firms from the market didn't necessarily cause the downturn, but could have added to it, some market experts say.

A number of high-frequency firms closing down in the midst of a sharp market drop can "widen markets out substantially," said Jamie Selway, managing director of New York broker White Cap Trading.

High-frequency firms have in recent years become central to how the market operates, growing to account for about two-thirds of daily market volume, according to industry estimates.

The firms use high-powered computers to send "buy" and "sell" orders to the market at rapid speeds. High-frequency traders have said part of the value they add to markets is the liquidity they bring�being at the ready to swiftly complete a trade. Some of these firms have said that, were it not for them, the 2008 market declines would have been worse.

Thursday's downdraft suggests how important that liquidity-providing role has become. Market participants say some high-frequency firms pulled back as the speed and extent of the decline went outside their models, which are generally based on the market behaving in a normal fashion. To avoid the risk of big losses, the firms essentially turned off their trading programs.

That appeared to leave investors with fewer traders to take the other side of their orders.

"We did see several clients who stopped trading," said a broker who caters to high-frequency firms.

Some high-frequency traders, including Mr. Cummings at Tradebot, say their moves didn't accelerate declines. He says other firms selling large positions caused the market turmoil and that Tradebot would have been risking losses if it had continued trading. He says exchanges need to install better systems that automatically stop or slow trading when the market becomes overly chaotic.

"The design of the market should halt [trading], and there should be an orderly reopening," he said.

Exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange, operated by NYSE Euronext, have circuit breakers that can halt trading over the broader market in steep declines, but they weren't triggered Thursday.

Technical factors that high-frequency firms and other quantitative funds use to trade likely also played a part as the selling accelerated.

When the market hits certain levels as it falls, these firms' computers are programmed to sell automatically as protection against further losses.

"This was a massive liquidation panic," said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist for Bell Curve Trading, a Freehold, N.J., technical-research firm.

As the losses accelerated, there were little to no "buy" orders left in many stocks and other assets, causing a plunge that saw some securities spiral to near zero. "You just blew through everything," he said.

online.wsj.com...

Finally someone on CNBC with balls... well aside from Ron Paul and a few others..

CNBC Host "That Is Ridiculous This Sounds Like Market Manipulation To Me"

On CNBC’s May 6 “Closing Bell,” correspondent Matt Nesto explained that investigators for both the stock exchanges and for Citigroup, the firm that some are pointing fingers at for a so-called trader error, have narrowed it down to a futures index called the E-mini S&P 500.

“A person familiar with the Citi investigation said one focus of the trading probes were the futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 stock index known as the E-mini S&P 500 futures and in particular that two-minute window in which 16 billion of the futures were sold,” Nesto said. “Again, those sources are telling us that Citigroup’s total E-mini volume for the entire day was only 9 billion, suggesting that the origin of the trades was elsewhere.”

Nesto named eight stocks that were hit with the supposed computer error/bad trade, if that’s indeed what happened, that went all the way down to zero or one cent, including Exelon (NYSE:EXC), Accenture (NYSE:ACN), CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP), Eagle Material (NYSE:EXP), Genpact Ltd (G), ITC Holdings (NYSE:ITC), Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO), Casey’s General (NASDAQ:CASY) and Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM)

“Now according to someone else close to Citigroup’s own probe of the situation, the E-Minis trade on the CME,” Nesto continued. “Now Maria, I want to add something else just in terms of these erroneous trades that Duncan Niederauer, the NYSE CEO was just talking about. I mean, we’ve talked a lot about Accenture, ACN. This is a Dublin-based company. It's not in any of the indexes. If you look in the S&P 500, for example, I show at least two stocks that traded to zero or one cent – Exelon and CenterPoint. If you look in the Russell 1,000, I show Eagle Materials, Genpact, ITC and Brown & Brown, also trading to zero or a penny, and also Casey's General Stores, as well as Boston Beer trading today, intraday, to zero or a penny. So those have at least eight names that they're going to have to track down on top of the Accenture trade, where we have the stock price intraday showing us at least, we'll assume, a bogus trade of zero.”

Nesto calling these trades “bogus” drew backlash from the host and CNBC veteran Maria Bartiromo, who said those trades sounded like “market manipulation” to her.

“ That is ridiculous,” Bartiromo replied. “I mean this really sounds like market manipulation to me. This is outrageous.”

According to Nesto, these are frequent occurrences, at least at the NASDAQ exchange and if you make a trade a lose money, there’s no recourse.

“It happens a lot, Maria. It really does. I mean, we could probably ask the NASDAQ, they may not want to say how often it happens, but it happens frequently. And they go back and they correct. And the thing that stinks is if you in good faith put in a trade and made money and then lost it, you lose it. And there's no recourse and there's no way to appeal.”

EDIT: According to someone from Romania... Romania is getting shafted too by the IMF and no one is talking about it...

Here's the deal for Romania :

250,000 public sector employees will be fired in the next 6 months

all public sector wages will be cut by 25%

all pensions will be cut by 15%

social aid for payment of heating eliminated

Decisions on tax hikes will be announced tomorrow.

Nice eh?

[edit on 6-5-2010 by Vitchilo]

This isn't the full book of 10 bid/ask on both sides but it will have to do.

Scroll to 2:45:47

Dropped 8 WHOLE ES POINTS in 5 seconds

It's the first thing I saw, I don't have time currently to look through the rest..

Anyone else is more than welcome to post their results..

hotfile.com...

[edit on 6-5-2010 by GreenBicMan]

[edit on 6-5-2010 by GreenBicMan]

reply to post by Vitchilo


Yes Manipulation at its finest,

I was trying to find that article on the countries now to follow the IMF guidelines, meaning turning countries that are already in financial trouble already into leaching economies for the IMF, in other words they own them.

Their citizens and their governments.

NWO anybody? With more economies collapsing this the future we are to expect, some elites dictating how nations and economies are to be run.

More sickening stuff from the US senate...

Senate votes 61-33 against a proposal to require giant U.S. banks to split up

Of course. BUNCH OF SELL OUT.

IS IT ME OR TODAY'S PLUNGE WAS A MESSAGE? BREAK US UP AND YOU'RE ALL DEAD!

THEY ARE GETTING MORE OBVIOUS BY THE DAY.


Not much different from when they threatened martial law if they did not get their bailout.

[edit on 6-5-2010 by Vitchilo]

www.infowars.com...

video of the cnbc anchor calling manipulation... tomorrow is gonna be wild

There was just a guy on CNBC WORLD if you have it from Asia basically saying that there was no way an institution placed a billion instead of a million. He says there are limits in place that would most likely not allow this in any scenario in financial institutions. He said he has seen no evidence as of yet etc.

SP 500 Futures up about 9 + points since 7 EST

www.sierrachart.com...

reply to post by GreenBicMan


He might just know what he is talking about.
I agree, and I have good reason to say that no way no how is this the cause, just look at the VIX or volatility index.

And an aside, fat fingers or not, they dont use "m" and "b".
I can not be the only one that knows this here.
I could give them a sliver of credibility if they admitted that there were
too many "zeros".

And to top it off, MSNBc headlines that "A Report" disclosing a human error lets us know that this unprecidented tank is from "human error".
They bury the "link" to the supposed report several layers deep.
Follow it, and it is eventually linked to the "rumor" that CNBC started.

What a load of dung!

[edit on 6-5-2010 by burntheships]

euro making a little run up now, 127 +

edited to reflect current move



[edit on 5-6-2010 by worldwatcher]

reply to post by burntheships


Yes, if it is a professional system you must type in the quantity

For example in Interactive Brokers I must type

110,000 for size in FX

I also find it really hard to f'in believe that an institution even has a BILLION key in the first place. When would you ever need to use that unless you had Big Ben backing you silently.

reply to post by GreenBicMan


Yes you do know, and Citi does not use "m" and "b" either.
Your experience has made you all the wiser.

-400+ pips in 3 hours GBP AUD

www.sierrachart.com...

How come there is no one news networks reporting of the economic meltdown in serbia, Bosnia regions?

70% to 80% people are been laid off! and no one is talking about it?

reply to post by burntheships


I also find it pretty hard to believe some professional would short contracts when the DJIA was already down 600+ on the day with even millions of contracts

If you look through those bid/ask prices I linked to you will see some interesting volume on the bid/ask. Sometimes LESS THAN 100 contracts on both sides of the market. That is unprecedented.

[edit on 6-5-2010 by GreenBicMan]

reply to post by Agent_USA_Supporter


What? Do a thread about it! I'm sure PLENTY of people would be interested... I am!

Fire away!

reply to post by GreenBicMan


Agreed. Here is something to think about...2:30 is the end of the stop. Everyone knows that.

Look at the VIX, look at the timing,
finance.yahoo.com...

Calculated move IMO.

edit to add look at the spike when it is customized to show insider trading,

Yahoo.VIX

[edit on 6-5-2010 by burntheships]

EXCELON (EXC.N)

PCT CHANGE -99%

PREVIOUS PRICE $34.68

LOW PRICE $0.41

*

CENTERPOINT (CNP.N)

PCT CHANGE -99.9

PREVIOUS PRICE $13.13

LOW PRICE $0.01



The New York Stock Exchange has canceled the offending trades, but can you imagine the grey hair...the coronaries ?

Originally posted by OBE1
EXCELON (EXC.N)

PCT CHANGE -99%

PREVIOUS PRICE $34.68

LOW PRICE $0.41

*

CENTERPOINT (CNP.N)

PCT CHANGE -99.9

PREVIOUS PRICE $13.13

LOW PRICE $0.01

The New York Stock Exchange has canceled the offending trades, but can you imagine the grey hair...the coronaries ?

at 2:47 the stock dropped to a penny per share, within 10 minutes it was up to $13/share again.


Did someone got filthy rich in a matter of minutes off this stock?