Hi, I have been scalping the e-mini SP 500 for a few years now and wanted to open up a thread regarding the world's biggest ES traders to use as inspiration for my own trading. Specifically, there are a few I have noticed which I would like to bring to your attention and see what you know of these characters. 1) Buy Side Flipper The much talked about 'flipper'. This character seems to be in the market all day every day and you can see him manipulating it with large orders mainly using 300,450 and 800 lots. He is mainly a bid side manipulator so I imagine he is nearly always long and I have noticed that in the after hours market he is selling in 100 and 200 lot clips. A lot of his activity seems illegal to me in that a lot of his orders can't be hit and sometimes he manipulates both sides of the market to confuse people but generally he is trying to manipulate the market higher. There also seems to be some strange goings on with this individual trading with himself in large blocks in order to manipulate people into thinking there is a large buyer when infact he is trading with himself. He was very prevalent in 2004/5 and looking through other posts I can only hazard a guess that this is Igor. Due to his manipulative activity I can clearly see why he is so hated in the US. 2) Freak I don't know if you've noticed but in the last year there have been very small orders being put on the bid and pulled in an extreme fashion. Indeed at one point I had an estimate of literally THOUSANDS of tiny 1 and 3 lot orders being put on numerous bids by the same individual in a matter of seconds. Now obviously this guy is using a computer to do this but obviously it's a human who controls the computer. Why he would deem it necessary to do this is beyond me but look at the best bid AT ANY POINT OF THE DAY and you will see these freak orders rolling on the bid. You should also be aware that this individual is responsible for a pathetic attempt at manipulation as if there is 90 on the bid he will try to make it 100 lots, or if there is say 485 on the bid he will put 15 on top to make it 500 so it seems there is more bid. This fool seems to think he can manipulate the market this way which I find frankly ridiculous. Again I can only conclude that he is predominantly a long side trader. I wonder if Jump Trading have anything to do with this, since they seems to specialize in automated trading. It should also be noted that, if it seems that I have talked about the above two people negatively then what I noticed on 9/11 really hacked me off. These two individuals were one of the only people who placed orders during the one-minute silences that were observed that day. Maybe they'd like to explain why they couldn't stop their manipulation for 4 minutes of the year????? 3) Big Bear This trader I will call Big Bear because he seems to only go short and is more mysterious than the other two. Indeed some days I don't even notice him being there, especially up days, where he only shows himself maybe once or twice a day. He's been around a while and the way you can spot him is that he drags and drops his orders DOWN in order to try to encourage it to be smacked down. I remember he used to clip 300's back in the day, but now he is clipping 400 and 800 lot clips. I saw him offer 8,000 the other day and someone told me that he's actually got 40,000, so whether he's taking 32,000 lot positions or wants to hide his size God only knows. 4) Long/Short Fund Since 04/05 I have noticed there are two HUGE players and can only presume that it is two funds going against each other. These two go at it every day and have done since ES was in the 1500's so these two really intrigue me. They smack the market, up and down, numerous times per day EVERY DAY. I have also noted that there have been some RECORD open net positions in the ES in the last year or so of about 160-180,000 contracts and can only imagine it is these guys. I would love to know who they are because IT IS THEY WHO ARE THE S&P, the rest of us are just a sideshow. I love these two because they make the market more volatile and both have been responsible for some of the most memorable days of trading in the history of the S&P. Good luck to them both and I hope they both survive and prosper. So there you go. There are my observations of the world's biggest Emini SP500 traders and what I have picked up over the last few years. I may be wrong in my assumptions but that's what this thread is about. rgds Joovenile
In reply to the question who cares? ANYONE WHO TRADES THE MARKET should care in order they are not manipulated out of their position by 'the flipper'. Standard oil - I can often see what the 'flipper' is trying to do and as I see everyone buying into his offer as he manipulates the bids I am sitting short shouting at the screen "YOU DUMB FOOLS". I hold on and 5 mins later more often than not it is a full 2-3 ticks lower. I'm not saying I trade off of the flipper, I use my own mind, but I learn not to be cheated out of my trade by him.
I don't think either of these are the PPT. These guys are there everyday and it should be natural for two funds to go against each other in a market as big as the Spoos. The first three guys are unquestionably locals, just big ones, that's all.
Maybe it's Paul Rotter's alter ego US version. 3) Big Bear This trader I will call Big Bear because he seems to only go short and is more mysterious than the other two. Indeed some days I don't even notice him being there, especially up days, where he only shows himself maybe once or twice a day. He's been around a while and the way you can spot him is that he drags and drops his orders DOWN in order to try to encourage it to be smacked down. I remember he used to clip 300's back in the day, but now he is clipping 400 and 800 lot clips. I saw him offer 8,000 the other day and someone told me that he's actually got 40,000, so whether he's taking 32,000 lot positions or wants to hide his size God only knows. My guess Borsellino....He loves to come in and push the market lower, however, recently has been bidding up more often, at least in the pit. 4) Long/Short Fund Since 04/05 I have noticed there are two HUGE players and can only presume that it is two funds going against each other. These two go at it every day and have done since ES was in the 1500's so these two really intrigue me. They smack the market, up and down, numerous times per day EVERY DAY. I have also noted that there have been some RECORD open net positions in the ES in the last year or so of about 160-180,000 contracts and can only imagine it is these guys. I would love to know who they are because IT IS THEY WHO ARE THE S&P, the rest of us are just a sideshow. I love these two because they make the market more volatile and both have been responsible for some of the most memorable days of trading in the history of the S&P. Good luck to them both and I hope they both survive and prosper. It is very naive to assume there is only two big traders in the ES pushing it around considering the houses are considerable players but I guess it's interesting to pass the time?