Archive - Jul 7, 2009

sdf

In an opinion piece submitted to The Wall Street Journal, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote that governments need to act to curb a "dangerously volatile" oil price that defies "the accepted rules of economics" and "could undermine confidence just as we are pushing for recovery."

Hours earlier in Washington, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the main futures-market regulator in the U.S., announced it would hold hearings on whether to introduce tougher regulation of oil-futures markets. The rules, which drew immediate criticism from traders, would seek to curb the influence of speculative investors such as hedge funds and investment banks by limiting how much money any single trader can bet on any one commodity at a given time.

GATA today urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer trading program that, according to a federal prosecutor, the bank acknowledges can be used to manipulate markets.

"Despite massive state interventions in economies around the
world, many corporate leaders and investors act as though
globalization remains the dominant paradigm. That is a mistake."

Some perspectives on why everyone should take out their credit card (preferably one issued by General Electric), dial 1-900-PIMCO and buy as many treasuries as their credit rating will allow them. Also, fast forward to 4:20 for some candid observations on puppeteering regarding PIMCO's most recent personnel addition. Odd that CNBC should be asking such questions.

The NYSE has officially released the correction for its lapse in reporting Goldman Sachs' program trading numbers last week.

Short Answer: It depends, but it could get ugly.

UNG the equity ETF symbol that is the largest holder of NG contracts by size, had its symbol halted today, while they issued new units.

Some recommended afterthoughts from Dave and Matt.

Joe Saluzzi submits: We have talked extensively on our blog and in our white papers about the power of high frequency trading and program trading. We have noted that these trading strategies can move the market quickly during the trading day. We have always suspected that there have been certain major players that can dominate this space. Now comes the case of the stolen proprietary trading code from Goldman Sachs.

"We have had 6 points of multiple expansion. It has been a multiple expansion rally... We have priced in a 2012 recovery."
CNBC can't get enough of corny jokes about crystal balls. Zero Hedge can't get enough of David's delightful grasp on economics.

• British manufacturing output dropped in May
• Home prices may fall in more than half of the largest U.S. cities through of 2011
• Justice Dept. to look at telecoms and abuse of their market power.
• Oil hovers above $64 after plunging over past week
• Plane insurers suffer worst month since 2001 on Air France and Yemeni crashes
• US Service economy contracts at slowest pace in nine months in ISM index.

Just when one thought it is possible to have a big scandal erupt, in which Chicago is named and not have Ken Griffin involved, the Citadel trail emerges. Contrary to previous rumors that Getco may have been the unfortunate firm to land Bond, Serge Bond, Misha Malyshev's new outfit, Teza Technologies, emerges with a bang. Teza, run by Misha, whom Zero Hedge has discussed previously, former Head of High-Frequency Trading at Citadel, together with another former teammate and recent Princeton grad (resume recently pulled from the interwebs), Jace Kohlmeier, announced that it had suspended Sergey without pay after learning of the allegations