____________________________________________________ No, no, no, darkhorse. He still owes me a "kickin' Lavish's Ass" thread...don't cut in line now.
from the Taskmaster's column this afternoon, evidence against an official PPT (but supporting a loose knit group of players) ======== Don't Stop Thinking About Yesterday As reported yesterday, rumors circulated that the session's wild reversal was prompted by futures buying by the Federal Reserve, or someone operating on its bequest. Several readers emailed to attribute today's brief midday bounce to similar government machinations. Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Fari Hamzei of Hamzei Analytics, a Los Angeles-based quantitative analytics firm that serves the institutional community. Citing "high level" contacts at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Hamzei said yesterday's rally was spurred by a "straight outright purchase" (vs. a program buy) of S&P 500 futures by three institutional firms. He wouldn't name them but said they were of the pension fund and mutual fund variety vs. hedge funds or government entities. Because of the size of the order -- 10,000 contracts -- he said floor dealers "panicked" and started covering their own shorts, which aided the bounce. That in turn caused more covering, and so on. In very quick order, this sparked the "mammoth moon shot" that was yesterday afternoon. (Dan Fitzpatrick noted Hamzei's observation in RealMoney.com's Columnist Conversation and I put in a follow-up call to the analyst.) Hamzei said the buy orders came in with the S&P futures trading between 875 and 884.42, which represented the contract's "S3" yesterday -- or third tier of intraday support. Given the buyers were not hedge funds -- "who can run in for a day and make lunch money" and get out -- yesterday's action represented a "major buy signal," the trader said. "Not the bottom, but a good, tradeable bottom." Hamzei's theory is that because the buyers were "big boys" who can't (and don't) "turn on a dime," yesterday's intraday lows "are going to be defended" if and when the market revisits them. Today, S&P futures settled down 17.30 to 903.30. As of 5 p.m. EDT, S&P futures were trading down 1.60 to 901.70 in the Globex session. =========
Somehow, I'm just not convinced. Is Hamzei as sleazy as he appears? http://hamzeianalytics.com/testimonials.asp What if you knew which direction a stock would move before it actually did? Would that be valuable? What if you knew this information in real time before anyone else? You can! http://hamzeianalytics.com/products.asp Our DIAMONDS package gives you access to three of our Proprietary TradeStation Trading Systems (Tomcat, Tiger II & Hornet) in real time on your PC and simultaneous commentary via our own integrated Instant Messaging System: You need $100,000 of risk capital. The Trading Systems will give you real time Buy & Sell signals and trailing stop orders (including size of shares or contracts for $100K). You have a choice of 15-min (Tomcat: advanced), Hourly (Tiger II: intermediate), or Daily (Hornet: swing trading) Systems. Trades the most liquid and trending ETFs and Futures. You can run TradeStation system back-tests to measure system performance. Access to a select set of our TradeStation Indicators ELS (protected) code. We will give you real time commentary. This is useful WHEN WE DO NOT TAKE A TRADE AND WE EXPLAIN WHY. Put Call Ratios, Expansion MIVs and using a proprietary Excel package, the US Markets Internals are monitored, in real time, to further fine-tune the systems recommendations. Professional valued at $199.95/month
yeah he could easily be full of it ultimate point being worry about what you know, not what you don't (except for entertainment purposes), and settle for a mitten fit 'cause the glove fit just ain't happenin'
Thankyou so very much for the kind words Noodles! Pretty ironic actually... wasn't it noodles that too had the wool pulled over his eyes for all those years by Maximillion??? Or were you just under the impression that Raekwon somehow came up with this name on his own??? In any regards you have just joined Lundy on the ignore Good Night! PEACE Publias
"Because of the size of the order -- 10,000 contracts -- he said floor dealers "panicked" and started covering their own shorts" Somebody please tell me, who is so altruistic and so well capitalized that they bought 10,000 full sized S&P 500 futures contracts during the worst of the drop yesterday ? There is no way that some pension fund manager dreamed that up all by himself and just decided to bet the farm. That is much more far fetched than the plunge protection team stepping in. But hey, they need to cloud the issue somehow.
While I have no interest in vouching for a rumor, I don't think that the concept of an informal agreement to buy on the part of big players is far fetched at all. If multiple large interests on the street get together, the risk is proportionately distributed to a greater degree than suggested. For one thing, if they act in concert they are sure to have a concerted effect as well as the element of 'surprise'. For another thing, elephants that are buying are assured to be not selling. More players could have participated just by laying off the dumping at a prescribed time. Last but not least I'm sure they love the RUMORED idea of a government sanctioned PPT as it suggests the guns are even bigger than they might be in reality. This type of sanctioned emergency collaboration makes imminent sense and is safer to rig than an actual organization that might require documents and moneyflows that could be tracked. Plus who has the most to lose in a real crash? The big boys have the most to defend. This scenario of maginot line buying is also highly possible because the risk for the institutionals is perversely skewed by the index tracking/buy and hold bias. Get killed in a downtrend and you can shrug your shoulders and point out how everyone else is down. Miss a rally, however, and you could lose your job. This bias towards danger of missing out over danger of getting hammered encourages mutual funds and institutionals to act irresponsibly and put money on the line far more enthusiastically than common sense might warrant. p.s. this isn't to deny the existence of an actual PPT. only to suggest an informal network of connected players could be equally effective. elephants of a feather flock together.
Great post! You nailed it. As independent traders we are totally focused on pressing our edge. It can be easy to forget that many of the big dogs are not just larger and more expert versions of ourselves. They are playing a different game, and are bound by different rules. (Some that are not aligned to trading well and making money) -Bo
I may not have "high level" contacts at the MERC but I've got a brain and regarding that it tells me: "Balderdash!"
It is a MF conspiracy, man! Btw, 10,000 contracts = ~$5,000,000,000. In an industry plagued by redemptions, who might have this kind of change to spare?