I did hear the left butt cheek - right butt cheek spread was widening, expect the Telegraph pub was doing good business by 11.02am, was hardly straightforward on the outrights either mind, but even for those spreaders probably felt more a case of how many outrights were on than any sort of spread. "Intra-day, the German bund gained 150 ticks in the first two hours, only to loose them again in the following two. Over 1 million Bunds were traded during this short period of time." https://multimediafiles.kbcgroup.eu...unrise_market_commentary_0900dfde8028b215.pdf
323 tick range on Friday, can't say I saw that 200 tic selloff coming at 5pm London but with bid ask down to sub 50 lots at peak time not too surprised. Monday should be interesting tnote could go either way after that downgrade. Seatbelt on. http://www.forexpros.com/rates-bonds/euro-bund-advanced-chart
The 5pm sell off was a total joke. I am on the case with the ECB Monday if I get a chance. The ECB does not use anonymous channels of communication yet we are supposed to believe 30 hours after Trichet had the eyes of the world on him and did not speak of buying Italian or Spanish Bonds, some unknown source familiar with the matter lets Reuters know that's exactly what the ECB stand ready to do. I have seen this rubbish before and the journalists are never able to name the 'source'. I personally hope a regulatory investigation is born out of this as it does nothing to restore confidence in either the ECB or the peripheral bond market.
<B>ECB sources: Sunday evening crunch time</B> The source said that if the ECB council opted to intervene on Italy at a crucial conference call starting at 1700 GMT (6 p.m. British time), the ECB and national central banks would start buying Italian bonds when markets open on Monday. Another ECB source said the council would also look at possible emergency liquidity measures to prevent money markets freezing. A third ECB source said the ECB meeting had been put back into the evening to see what measures the United States was ready to take to assuage markets after credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Washington's AAA rating to AA+ on Friday. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/07/uk-crisis-idUKL6E7J707B20110807 (Where's the bit that should say "These 3 sources we're spotted on Saturday down the ferrari garage having tipped off some journalists and traders for a nice kick back on Friday"?)
I too never saw the massive 5pm selloff. I rarely trade that late on Fridays anyway but had that "annoucement" occured earlier in the day I probably wouldn't have done well. Maybe after 120-150 ticks I would have got involved which would've ended badly. Actually when the US indexes got to their lows I fancied a total collapse so I was wrong on all counts. Can't wait for Monday...
Martin's correct - official pretenses aside, the ECB leaks everything by design. Been that way from day one with them.
My friend, if only that were the biggest problem of theirs... Something tells me they got more pressing issues.