Is The SLP The NYSE's Answer To Direct Edge's "Advance Look" Enhanced Liquidity Provider Program Or You Trade You Lose, You Trade...

There is a curious article in the latest edition of Traders Magazine. It is curious mostly because it was allowed to be published, as it definitively peels off the cover of what truly happens at the pantheon of stock exchanges, that dominated by a private club of select high frequency traders, who obtain better and faster pricing than everyone else, and where the group of "select few" is seemingly legally allowed and even encouraged to front-run the "every-one else" (you, dear reader, are most likely in the latter camp). If you ever wondered why HFT generates profits of over $20 billion a year, please read this article.

Grayson Grilling Bernanke On Half A Trillion In Foreign Liquidity Swaps And The Constitutional Basis For Such

Grayson asks Bernanke about the $550B (as of 12/31/08) in liquidity swaps with foreign central banks. Who got the money? How did the Fed lend this much money without the consent of Congress? Did these loans push up the value of the dollar?

• At minute 1:30, Bernanke can’t say which financial institutions got the money.
• At minute 3:19, Bernanke says that the 30% rise in the dollar which took place at the same time as the Federal Reserve lent out $500B to foreign central banks was just a coincidence.
• At minute 3:45, Bernanke and Grayson discuss the Constitutional basis for the Federal Reserve lending a half a trillion dollars to foreigners.

Canada Believes It Has A Tight Grip On Inflation

The Canadian rate decision is standing solid at 0.25 and the BoC expects to be able to control inflation going forward.

Obama Does Not Need Congress To Fund IMF and WB, Barney Frank Shocked, Compares Obama To W.

Barney Frank puts on his indignation hat on after realizing that the President has decided he doesn't need congressional approval on funding international financial institutions including the IMF and the World Bank. Here is the ensuing response when Barney realizes that for all his posturing, he is a third (and quite overinflated at that) wheel: "During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the President’s assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce. We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude." Most odd is why the President wants unopposed decision making with regard to these organizations: is Larry Summers smelling a massive, upcoming global bail out that the American people are not allowed to be heard on?

Bernanke Prepares For Congressional Grilling

As Bernanke heads to Congress to defend the Fed's Independce, he releases this WSJ Op-Ed:

The depth and breadth of the global recession has required a highly
accommodative monetary policy. Since the onset of the financial crisis
nearly two years ago, the Federal Reserve has reduced the interest-rate
target for overnight lending between banks (the federal-funds rate)
nearly to zero. We have also greatly expanded the size of the Fed’s
balance sheet through purchases of longer-term securities and through
targeted lending programs aimed at restarting the flow of credit.

Daily Highlights: 7.21.09