Sorry I am not following. Your call was that we close at 1390 on S&P when SPX was at near 1383/1385. I do not think 5 points move to close is the sign of a buy program.
nice call op.. i bought some puts around highs which is good but i already sold most of them which is bad..
It isn't how much higher that the market goes that determines whether its a buy program at work. Its the price action. When you see a huge spike in price on no news that keeps going and then dies out, that is a buy program. It is meant to move the market, but sometimes there are sufficient numbers of real sellers above to drive the price back down. But that doesn't negate the fact that there is a program running. Some programs run into little resistance, others run into a lot of resistance or even sell programs. Looks like this one ran into a sell program.
The spike in volume (usually 3+ times normal volume) with a spike in price and relentless buying/selling on no news with very shallow pullbacks which are immediately bought/sold in 1-2 minute time frames. There is no set definition, but you know it when you see it. One of the tell tale signs is the price looks like it is being manipulated while the program is running. This buy program ran into a sell program. Clearly not what the buy program wanted. They either give up here on the program or try to out-ammo the sell program. I don't think they can out-ammo the sell program. One more note: in general, I have seen a lot more buy programs than sell programs over the past 6 months. I guess the sell programs aren't really necessary when the price action is already weak.
No news? How about Beige book at 2:00? Didn you see the double intrabar shift that occured on that bar? Thats price action, but it was definitely in response to Beige Book that was released at 2:00
The beige book was at 2:00, the buy program was launched at around 2:30. There was no news at the time.
Its all in response to the BEige Book, did you see intrabar at 2:00. A double bar shift in sentiment occured. The buyers won out and that was the trigger. Maybe buy programs waited to make sure a seller didnt swoop down right afterwards. If you are a price action guy, 2:00 was the key and that was Beige Book.
Once gain, Bob is correct. The initial response to the Beige Book was negative, before coming back into the range. The market took off to the upside after the FNM rumors. The market is now giving back those gains ( and then some ) due to the Treasury Dept. dismissing the rumor about raising the cap on mortgages.