I just found this article ("How to Increase Global Wealth Inequality for Fun and Profit"), which seems like it was much-discussed when it was published a year ago. Author points to the stark difference between intraday vs non-market-hour returns for all the major indices (noting that, astonishingly, nearly ALL(!) market gains, in the aggregate, are from overnight movement.) His theory seems to be that the only explanation for that anomaly is a handful of huge funds ($1B+) buying huge positions in the morning, and selling them in the afternoon: "The Strategy is very simple: construct a large, suitably leveraged, market-neutral equity portfolio and then systematically expand it in the morning and contract it in the afternoon, day after day. The Strategy works because your trading will, on average, move prices in a direction that nets you mark-to-market gains." There's something fundamental I need explained to me, though: if the well-documented effect of overnight returns being massively larger than intraday...I'm confused about what the author's saying about funds profiting massively by...buying at open and selling at close (and repeating that each day). Wouldn't that...seem to be precisely the opposite of what the day-vs-overnight return patterns suggest is profitable(??) I'm missing something fundamental, I'm just not sure what...just what is the manipulative behavior that Knuteson is suggesting is driving the day/overnight split?
Speculating ... Could it be: The "easy work" in the market is to make it move The "hard work" is to make the movement stick, to cement the move, at least temporarily, at key levels of support and resistance Concentrated North American smart money, appropriately, does the "hard work" for North American securities during regular North American daytime hours. That hard work feeds on day-trading retail, which is always eager to trade for a move, rather than fade tests at support/resistance. Maybe the operation of smart money is not so North-American trading-hours centric, but like I said, "speculating" -- would be interested to see comments from people w/ expertise in this area.
This paper is a joke. Nowadays anyone can publish whatever personal schizophrenia on SSRN and sound serious "because it is a paper published on SSRN".
Yea, have not read the paper but seems you would buy right before close and sell immediately upon open. And he says "market neutral" position... to take advantage of directional equity moves after hours? Makes no sense to me...
here is my theory - every see the opening day of the fishing/hunting season? just human tendency... some hopeful anticipation of the open.
FYI: before jumping to the "he's just a clueless dummy with an internet connection" argument, know that he's a former MIT physics professor and hardcore quant trader with DE Shaw. This doesn't mean he's right -- just that he's got actual chops and shouldn't be instinctively dismissed as a quack. For those who haven't read the paper in the OP, I'd suggest you do so (it's short: ~4 pages), since I'm probably doing him a gross disservice in my description of his theory. I found this 2nd paper of his published just a few weeks ago that follows up on that 2018 publication and adds some clarity for me: So perhaps what he's suggesting (and what I was missing) is that you have an existing huge portfolio (say $10B of SPY), which you leave untouched...and then use a smaller chunk ($1B?) to execute these daily round-trips; you lose money on the $1B round-trip chunk (due to the documented intraday market ROI) but your activity has the effect of pushing up the market value of your existing $10B portfolio such that it's +EV in the aggregate(?) Is that what others are getting from it too? To be clear, I'm not looking for a profitable strategy I can replicate myself (paper makes clear that huge sums are needed for that)...just trying to understand the mechanics of just what Knuteson says is saying this manipulative strategy that's been employed by large funds over the last 30 years.
Yes, this was my understanding before I read the paper. If I had 10 billion in SPY, I'd definitely be willing to lose 1 billion to have my overall portfolio marked to market at 12 billion.
The author is misinformed. I think he was trying to imply in his incoherent rant is some hedge funds are using the overnight market to pump up positions & sell into the open. This is perfectly legal. Painting the tape is illegal, which is done on the less liquid OTC/penny stocks. Cramer - how the game is played