Ford (F) went up almost 7% at 4am today on 1270 shares traded. How the hell is that possible ? Am I to believe that only 1270 shares after hours were being offered to be sold ? Almost all the DOW stocks went up magically across the board at 4am, but I dont see how this happens just because its after hours. Can someone explain : 1) How someone buying $10K of Ford at 4am pushes the stock up 7% and then the price stays there 2) Whats to stop someone from buying $50k at 4am to push it up even further.
1) The answer?.....Illiquidity. Stock traders don't work Sunday evening and early-early Monday morning. The 5% to 7% rally in "F" corresponds to the rally in the German stock market at that time. You can't expect the stock to sit unchanged "down there" while the rest of the world is soaring. 2) Nothing. There can be buy-stop orders waiting to be activated that the buyer can sell into.
Ford shares are traded in Japan, China, India, Europe, etc. Each of those markets buy Ford, and that increases the stock price.
When the futures are up , stocks will be at higher prices even if no one is trading them, thats why there are gaps.
zanek: "F" is a NYSE stock, although mostly traded electronically through ARCA, there are still specialists who have to match the buy/sell orders in their books. If there is a buy side imbalance, then the specialist must find enough sellers willing to match the bid, and thus can have an effect on the opening price. The other reasons mentioned also contribute to the push up on the stock. Today was a great day for those who bought on Thursday/Friday last week and sold on the gap!
This thread is getting comical. And....it would take too much typing to address the bastardization. Futures markets are mutually exclusive from the underlying stock. Correlated but distinct. Ditto for foreign bourses, regional exchanges and ECN's. The opening is the ONE price that ALL participants get. Only once per day. Think about that. In theory the open is the clean out the MOST open orders. It also facilitates the specialist in moving away from HIS basis. Long or short. Think about that. Why would HE have a basis? He maintains inventory posture day and day out perpetually. Think about that. Yes it was indeed sell on the gap up this morning. The S&P 500, made no NET progress after mid-morning. Gap + little net progress = WHO made money today? With the flick of the wrist. Multiply a gap by volume traded (yet alone outstanding that floats, double yet alone total outstanding). Call that magnitude. Pick a gap, do it on your calculator. Yet thee, eh, rally was probably babbled about all day on CNBC. Blocks would rarely go through ARCA. Gee, WHO would blocks go through? Is a block more than 1270 shares? Do blocks move price? Negotiated blocks don't appear on tape. When they go across the tape, what does that mean? After hours is out of session. Period. Just feeble attempts at short cuts. There's also a distinction between AM and PM. Hmmm, maybe "they" should go to military time. Like 1600. Butt, oops, I mean but, "they" would still have to contend with time zones. Like 1600 EST. As for scalper Joe with his "still specialists" JFC OSSOB
futures gapped up 2-4% over the weekend. another reason not to have a position over the weekend for traders . ruin your weekend.
Further evidence that the futures market or index futures are rigged the way it gapped up like that from friday's closed. either the market maker or someone saw are the short stops and etc. and force the short positions to cover. why would any buyer pay more than friday's close? the open sunday should be same as close on friday in a smooth fair and orderly market. trading on sunday nights suck too. ruin your sunday night. ban afterhours and sunday trading. it's mostly algos trading