Archive - Aug 3, 2012 - Blog entry

It’s Not Just The “London Whale”

James McShirley of Ohio who has documented numerous repetitive market activities which could never occur time and time again in a freely traded market. Just this past week gold completed its 2% up, 1% up, sideways, down hard pattern, which is only one of many trading anomalies James has tracked.

In light of yet another tech driven blowup yesterday at Knight Capital, perhaps someone, anyone, outside of ZH and Themis should look into this nonsense.

Even Orwell Underestimated the Ridiculousness ...

"I might even go back to my life of crime because of the JOBS Act--because it makes fraud too easy."

Alas, the devil is in the details for Europe’s latest attempt at financial alchemy.  Much to the investment world’s apparent dismay yesterday, it turned out that the ECB’s Draghi had nothing very specific in mind when he pledged last week to defend Europe’s monetary union by any means necessary.  In theory, and most immediately, such a rescue would entail using printing-press money to mop up Spain’s leprous bonds, lest rates push above 7%.

One has to question… does the Fed really want to be draining Treasuries and Agencies from the banks’ balance sheets. After all, the big banks, which sit on over $200 TRILLION worth of derivative trades, only have $7.12 trillion in assets.