Fools...2000? Will break right below 2000 and fall even faster, will be breaking every support level....free fall!!!
Well, this is an interesting paradoxical turn of events. The administration doesn't want to hurt the economy, but you wouldn't know it from their actions. They say that the economy will be fine and all that is required is to give the airline industry $50 billion, yet why are they so worried about the market that they're considering shortening the trading day. There is only one reason: they fear it will plummet. To all those bulls buying the tops created by hedge funds and more than likely the Treasury: get out while you can. Who has enough money to buy 20K+ contracts at 2546-ish in about 5 seconds? The probability would be astronomically low that 200 people bought 100 contracts at exactly the same second then suddenly nobody was interested afterward. That would only be plausible if there was a consistent volume at that level. The volume jumped from 100s to tens of thousands in seconds then back to 100s in seconds. That has happened a few times over the past few days. Second question: Why wouldn't they place those block trades less publicly? If I were to do that, I would fear a run in the price before I could get the amount desired, unless of course that was the whole point. I'll spell it out: 20,400*2546*100 * (3-12% margin) = $5,193,840,000 notional value -> $155.8M - $623.26M trade value. Who has that kind of money? (rhetorical of course). This happened a few times, with values like 35,000, then 55,000, 20,400, etc. Those were anomalous volume events. Even bigger question: who could afford to loose that much and why would they choose to? 20,400 * (2546-2486 last I checked) * 100 = $122.4M loss on that trade so far. Before you say they are betting on some time in distant future, those were Mar 20 '20 contracts. There are 600+ billionaires plus the GOs in the US. Hmm. Not a large field. Why would they do that?
First of all, the multiplier for minis is 50, so it's 20k * 2500 * 50 = 2.5 billion Second of all, what the f*ck does margin has to do with it if you are looking at notional value? Finally, 20k contracts is not that unusual, you can look at tick data and see that you get these volume spikes fairly regularly (volume is autocorrelated, for those of you interested in microstructure). Dude, what makes you think these were block trades? Did you look at the CME IDs or something? For all you know, these were delta-neutral EFPs that coincided with a small spike in the market.
Provide liquidity? that type of volume is irregular for that instrument. I was looking at it which I already expained in my post. Yeah it is a statistical improbability that it was not one trade. The volume went from hundreds in a second to tens of thousands then back down. Secondly, you say 2.5 billion like its no big deal. Who are you? (again rhetorical) Nobody on this forum is somebody. block trades or not; that's a straw man. The main point the volume was hyper irregular and with a few thousand billionaires worldwide who could afford those trades. Somebody is not providing liquidity, they are pumping.
Seriously, dude, about 5.5 million contracts traded today across Mar and Jun. If I had to give an educated guess, I'd guess your "anomaly" was some news item hitting the market and everyones algo jumped on it (HFT traders love trading the news, BTW). Have you actually looked at the tick data to dissect what happened? Do "ESH0 Index QR <GO>" on your Bloomberg terminal, very easy and it will show you the breakdown of the trades. If you give me the exact time that happened, I am stuck at home and bored enough to do it myself tomorrow I said specifically that 20k contracts in 5-10 seconds is not unusual and that volume spikes like that happen. Volume tends to cluster naturally, especially in the modern HFT-driven world. Something happens to cause some aggressive trades, HFTs jump on the print. Suddenly, there is now book or trade pressure, more HFTs participate. Market moves enough to trigger delta hedges, more HFTs jump in etc. Bah, really, a nobody? There are several institutional traders/PMs who stop by here because they like socializing, are bored etc. In any case, people here know who I am and yes, I have traded that type of size over the course of my career There is a thousand HFT firms, hedge funds, various real money managers that can "afford" these trades. Also, it could have been a hedge of some sort, delta execution etc. The market is complex and full of various players with their own interests. FWIW, I am not trying to insult you, simply pointing out that before constructing conspiracy theories you should consider that it's just a random event.
%% Mostly the same as always in TN; except I noticed the local WMT had some bear/bare spaces in bottled water, briefly.[Some stores had t -paper limit signs LOL] But WMT, they stock well, lines were longer. SDOW + stuff are still nicely above 200day moving average, don't know why the media is negative on DOW?????