Archive - Aug 29, 2010

The chairman speaks some truth...

There really is no corner of the financial markets that was not well represented by market makers, analysts, technology providers, and investors-- thousands of them. A big splash in hard assets.

Watch this one.

When Zero Hedge first admonished our readers in June of 2009 to stay away from markets in light of a general deterioration in market structure, which included a regulator-authorized form of structural frontrunning in the form Flash trading (not to be confused with the imminently following Flash crash), an unprecedented mismatch between stock valuations and economic reality, and Wall Street continued attempts to reflate the ponzi merely for the sake of proving that it can be done, we never expected that retail would take to our warning with the ensuing solemnity. Yet with 16 consecutive outflows from domestic equity mutual funds, shut downs by legendary hedge fund managers such as Druckenmiller and Pellegrini (and many more Tiger derivative blows up to be disclosed soon, once the full extent of the carnage of the flattening of the steepener bandwagon trade is fully appreciated), virtually everyone is asking themselves how did Wall Street not only get it all so wrong, but how on earth is the primary business of the post-facelift Wall Street, which is no longer investment banking, but merely trading (with or without flow-facilitated prop frontrunning) going to sustain the recent record headcount levels (hint: it won't, and many more banks will soon let go thousands of additional staffers as key revenue sources have now disappeared forever), and most importantly, why is this time different? Why did the "dumb money" for the first time ever, not bite on the Wall Street siren song lure of an economic "rebound", but instead has hunkered down, proving that not only is Wall Street nothing more than a pure-play enabler of the ponzi regime's status quo, but that all those who were warning that the economy is far more dire than Wall Street represents, were proven right. These same individuals (and bloggers), first validated in predicting the downward direction of the economy, will see their pessimistic forecasts about stocks validated next. Yet while that happens, all those who still somehow find this a surprising development, are now left proposing hypothesis as to what went wrong. Such as the following piece by the Financial Times.