lol - yeah! like right now!!! nothin goin down for me at the mo - my usual markets - fx futures r going sideways, index not open yet (i trade the trends on these intraday) so im just sweating bullets watching my h5h6 go deep under water. i will decide whether or not to get out nearer the close - im hoping/praying for a pull back/profit taking by then (by the likes of tradinglife!!) which may lessen the damage, if there is any given the booked profit. but i think trading on hope is a fools move. am i hopeful or am i expecting a pull back out of experience?? aint figured that 1 out yet HEY TRADINGLIFE - I HOPE YOU ENJOY THAT MONEY OF MINE YOU & YOUR BUDDIES ARE TAKING!!! enjoy it while u can boss, cos come the next trend im gunna get it back plus some more. (bastard - bet he used to nick kids dinner money at school too) only kiddin.
cheers bloggs...but somehow I doubt I took it from you today...I think I took a large part of it from other outright traders looking for a pullback after nfp...lol!
well at least the long term trend has reasserted itself in the spreads (here comes the real money). rule #1. the trend is your friend! when will i learn!!! (groooooaaaaan) averaged out at 4 ticks down per lot for the entire position. this is the problem with this method. my outs will never be exact. u get a lot of intraday fluctuations on ge spreads that i dont get a real picture until the close to base the decision on. but these fluctuations at least enabled me to take half off at my first target yesterday- shame the rest hit the floor
short answer is no you can't tell if it is thier own book or customer base...long answer is that when I get taken out in one clip (my size varies but is usually between 300-800) when I'm offering in a 4000 lot, I don't care if it is one of their guys frontrunning or the actual order being executed for their customer...by the way it appears Goldman has been doing quite a bit of buying yesterday and today...
Looks like the curve flattener is back on again. Pretty good action today with the dollar doing better and unwind of that ten year/bund spread again, supposedly around 100k contracts this morning. Had some big paper rolling calls up another strike in the ten year options today in the Jan from 111 to 112 and continued profit taking out in the Feb and Mar calls around 112 and 113 strikes. We'll see what happens with 10yr auction tomorrow.
interesting & some good points - i forgot about front running - i guess that when u see jpm starting to hit the bids it could be an idea to jump in too, knowing the customer order is going to follow - but life just aint that simple as im sure we all know!! gs are pretty big in euribor as well - out of interest (and not wanting to move away from GE), does anyone watch GE in relation to euribor? euribor used to lag us stuff, (and sterling lag euribor), but given the weakness in usd i wondered if this seasonal was still true.
euribor seems to have very little interest in what ED does these days...and vice versa...with the ECB unwilling to give us any real insight into what the hell they are thinking, Euribor is left to twist in the wind created by the Bund...Trichet is becoming the European equivalent of John Snow. ie: full of crap. mcurto...todays action was pretty choppy in my opinion...you could see the momentum building in those treasuries yesterday and this morning they exploded...but after that initial push in one direction the rest was pretty painful...because the spread between the front months seems to be locked into place the movements have been in fits and spurts...and so much spoofing going on that 10yr it's crazy...sometimes wish I had a 10,000 clip to iron them out...on second thought, love to do that in ED too...one day maybe...lol.
thought I'd post this PM response from sle regarding a question I had asked earlier about why ED was so active near the end of the session recently... with his permission here it is: "there is a number of reasons big shops (like the one i am at) act a lot at the close (both in ED and govies), the main one being that they want to have all of the positions matched by the end of day. a lot of people treat their book as a prop opportunity during the day, trying to catch the best time to hedge the swaps they sell, while at the close the book has to be more or less hedged." thx again sle...this info has proved to be quite useful of late...
Another volatile day in treasuries. Good rally early this morning only to see everything fall apart into the afternoon. Big profit taking again in the feb 112 and march 113 calls in the ten year options (mortgage guys taking their hedges off). Good buyer in some out of the money puts (mar 110) on the close too. Not sure why we sold off on a pretty solid 10yr auction with bid to cover around 2.68. Also had GS put on a pretty big curve steepener today (buying ten years selling bonds). Not sure if this is a hedge against something else or for a customer. Haven't noticed much spoofing in the ten year as of late, maybe someone throwing up 3 or 4k, but not as bad as a month or two ago when some guy was showing 9 or 10k.
the indirect bidder participation rate for the 10yr auction was 9.8%...way off the average of about 35-40%...this means foreign institutions dramatically scaled back their purchases of 10yr notes (though yesterdays 5yr auction actually saw an increase in the indirect bidder participation rate so maybe this where some of the 10yr money went)...this ultimately caused the selling that allowed treasuries to break down...ED broke down as well after seeing serious bids all day again...likely to continue overnight then take its' cues from the PPI numbers... I heard that GS was buying the NOB aswell, interesting as he was also selling the T-Note futures outright up around the high of the day pretty heavily...