This is the perfect example of what American Capitalism has become. Today the CFTC files oil manipulation charges indicting some small trading firm no one has never heard of. The name of the firm is Optiver, and no one has ever heard of them!! LMAO. While GS, MER, MS, T Boone Pickens, and other IB/HF players demand and trade more oil than China - CFTC goes after some firm no one ever heard of. Same thing with SEC - when they launched their biggest insider trading investigation ever and then indicted some small time player that made a 100k. And then the SEC went after small prop firms with 5k deposits while we were experiencing the greatest credit crises in 80 years. So the SEC shut down small prop firms while naked shorting IB/HF players brought down BSC. So this is the true face of American Capitalism - privatize profits and socialize costs. And when there is outrage go after some small player no one ever heard of.
"The CFTC said the firm attempted to 'bang the close' by amassing large positions just before markets closed, forcing prices up, then selling them quickly, driving down prices and pocketing the difference." http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/24/markets/cftc/?postversion=2008072411 Sounds like a good trade to me, fucking witch hunt! Get your lawyer if you made a few bucks long QM's recently.
LMAO - they could've made that charge against anyone of us that trades crude. And no one ever heard of us either.
I honestly thought the EXACT same thing the moment I heard them mention 'Optiver.' I said to myself: 'Self, there's a sacrificial lamb.' We now have the answer. It was Optiver all along!!!!!!! DAMN YOU, OPTIVER!!!!!!! {shaking fist angrily}
I thought the exact same thing and actually started a thread entitled "sacrificial lamb" only to bag it cause action picked up. F'ing joke these guys.
The masses need a scapegoat. Looks like the small speculator is it right now. I am starting to be careful who I tell that I am a trader. The last few conversations have gone something like: Hi, what do you do for a living? A: I am an independent futures trader. Ah, so you are one of the ones driving up the oil prices... They should just ban all speculators and then prices would go down! A: But speculators make the market by providing liquidity. Without speculators there would be no market. Besides, for every buyer there is a seller and buyers must take on risk with each contract they own, there are no free lunches. Well, that's not what I heard on the news. A: uh <..uncomfortable silence..> Crazy weather we've been having huh?
Here's another example: After the tech bust - hundreds of billions were lost. And instead of investigating the shady IPOs, the conflict of interests in IB research and analyst ratings - the SEC instead decided to punish retail investors with 10k accounts by passing the PDT rule.
This is fucked up, our government are the biggest bunch on crooks, they really make me sick. Optiver?!?!?! Give me a break, I read the filling on the CFTC website and all it sounds to me is good fucking trading. Made over a million dollars in 11 days. Well it looks like we better give up trading crude, if we are making money.
Nah, just get ready to trade crude denominated in Euros instead of dollars once the trade moves overseas.