I am surprised to hear it was several markets at once, but the ES is IMO probably one of the most manipulated instruments on the planet, and afterhours moves have become comical. The ES is led around by the nose by the big banks like Goldman, Lehman and a few of the large hedgefunds. It always amazes me how they get away with advertising there are no MM's in futures. It is true, but futures have "large liquidity providers" which are CME members (Goldman, etc.) who basically move the market the way they want to. They control the cash market for christ sakes! So there are MM's with all the same stop running games as in equities. My take on the move last night was it was a stop run/pick up some cheap contracts to dump at 1415. End of story.
Yeah, but it can't be explained that ES, YM, AB, US, TY, C, S, W, and to a lesser extent GC, CL, all Spiked... That's kooky stuff... It's not a fat finger - it was something else... and we need to know about this... PS - I had no positions affected by this AT ALL. But it worries me a bit, ya know?
i looked at the volume on the 1 minute bars and it looked like someone came in with a thousand lot and moved the mrkt,it bounced back up 7 points with a 500 lot,there is no mystery ,1000 contract sell order in a 10 up mrkt will do that,and if everyone trading other mrkts is watching spus ,those mrkts would also be affected
Yea. This morning, I looked at the spike. I started at 60 minute, 30, 5, 2, 1. The S&P futures shot up 4 points to 1414+ and down to like 1404 in 1 minute. Weird...
This is why most futures traders actually underperform the S&P 500 in general. There are too many external factors and random events that can destroy your returns in a split second.
Iranian abandon of US$ challenge dollar's position as the dominate currency(established in Bretton Woods Conference in 1944) in th world and will cause a ripple effect in commodities, currency and stock market besides political consequences. 1. US dollar will speed up its depreciation as FED keeps on printing greenbacks. Other countries no longer have to reserve dollars to buy commodities esp. the small countries short of natural resources like Japan. 2. Euro and Japanese Yen will go up of course. 3. Inflation in US will get much worse. As Graham said in his famous book "Intelligent Investor": "Rising prices allow Uncle Sam to pay off his debts with dollars that have been cheapened by inflation". 4. Weak dollars will lift up the commodities price. * What if other OPEC countries abandon dollar as well? * What if dollar is removed in other commodities' transaction as well? 5. US stock market will head south with expensive raw materials. However Aerospace & defense stocks such as LMT and RTN will do well if there is a war. When will US economy recover? Who knows. Bush administration is NOT likely to allow such a situation last too long. Two carriers in Persian Gulf served as a "reminder". But the war will send oil price to the sky. The only thing useful that Bush did was the energy bill, i.e. turn corn into ethanol. Most Middle East countries must import agricultures from US. http://tradealarm.blogspot.com
Look at this T&S for ZB. You don't see this kinda shit even with a wild NFP number. 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116245 8:21:43 PM 20 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116235 8:21:43 PM 48 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116220 8:21:43 PM 208 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116095 8:21:43 PM 1 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116070 8:21:43 PM 22 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116015 8:21:43 PM 12 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116010 8:21:43 PM 10 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 115300 8:21:43 PM 20 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 115265 8:21:43 PM 35 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116200 8:21:43 PM 215 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 115230 8:21:43 PM 20 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 115230 8:21:43 PM 20 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116200 8:21:43 PM 500 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116200 8:21:43 PM 29 05/04/2008 ZB 08Jun 116225 8:21:43 PM 6
This is a pure classic market manuver. It's textbook. Some hedge fund has done the math and figured it can flood with orders multiple markets simutanously. By flooding the market it can clean all the exsisting bids/offers before most of us hacks can react. The Funds may even figured a lot of thoses bids/offers are stops with the owners off screen. Baldwin did this for years successfully in the Chicago Bonds, He figured he could buy up enough contracts to move 3 or 4 ticks then sell.
Bloomberg article on the copper move of Monday morning http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aHoUBkZ34EWw
I watched the T§S for ES and the algo/ fat finger/ whatever bought and sold large market orders in the same second, removing really large sizes and driving prices a lot outside fair value. Bids and asks didn't really update before the market was back at fair value and the guy for sure wasn't able to sell at tops and buy at bottoms after it...Even if its limit orders were already placed at extremes, the stop orders filled would not have offset the huge sizes needed to drive it there.... The guy has huge losses IMHO...