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The Last Minute Ramp Job Dissected
How do you prevent a 5% drop in a month (which as Credit Trader points out is precisely what the last minute ramp achieved)? A reader explains:
approx 175k ESU0 traded between 3:59 and 4:00 - $9.1B notional. in the 16 minutes between 3:59 and 4:15 just under 300k contracts traded total (12% of full day / overnight volume --- 200% of the previous 5 trading days) for total of $15B notional
And now you know. Beginning tomorrow, the stock market will open at 3:59 pm and close at 4:15 pm . Traders rejoice as this will open up whole new unexplored avenues to kill time during the day with trips to Scores and Baltusrol.
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Censored my own comment.
Thank god for machines, now we never have to work! I'm getting signed up on Farmville pronto!
"And I'm not bluffing!"
Looking good Lenny! With that mug, you could be the next Fed chairman. Lot's of perks, great pay and benefits with no real work involved. Just hold rates at ZIRP and blather about stuff no sane person can understand...
ok, sign me up!
For an inaugural bit,
"Rational consumer, increasing exports via a dead currentsea, green chutes yada yada, I have facial hair so you can trust me, I will answer no questions on FX rates and trading via my plunge protection team titled The President's Working Group on Financial Markets, I only own two suits, one grey/one blue, no flashy gold earrings (every time I come around bling bling!), and what else? Oh, I come from Princetown, so you may kowtow now!"
Too easy? Maybe I will spit fire at Congress for my second act.
You're hired but I think the Princetown bit is a little over the top..
Fair enough, you may bow....
Did you mean squat??
He meant Ben-d over and Getagrip on those ankles.
Oh I don't have my glasses, is that what the teleprompter says.
No that's Obama's gig. All you have to do is make it up as you go...
Sound's like you know the routine...
We all know it, with or without the teleprompter.
this reply got front run by a spastic ALGO
Sounds like you know the routine..but who doesn't by now.
The sad part is that it is true.
Come on....of course, can't have a down day on the night Obama speaks!
You down with PPT, yeah you know me!
I still think that the ISM numbers have leaked out to someone.
Or maybe the Chinese PMI was leaked out, which I believe is out tonight. This kind of ramp before Chinese data has happened in past. Some hedge funds might have very close ties with the Chinese govt and access to inside information.
In any case, this market is a farce. And CNBC wonders why retail investors are out of the market and going into bonds. They can manipulate yields, but not the guarantee of the principal.
Principal thats losing buying power with negative real yields...
"Some hedge funds might have very close ties with the Chinese govt and access to inside information."
This could be true but did they find out about this at precisely 3:58pm? I mean why wait until 3:59 to shoot yourself in the foot. A Hedge Fund wants to make money, so if they're going long why ramp up the ES?
Your point is preposterous.
The only legitimate reason I can think of is short covering but why would someone wait until 3:59 to cover their short ES position? That doesn't happen on a day with only good news (positive consumer sentiment etc).
What I meant was that's when it was leaked - almost at the close, and then they frantically started buying (or short covering).
Why would it leak just before the close ? I do not know. This kind of ramp up has happened before. Just minutes into the close, a huge volume surge that could only be explained later in hindsight. IIRC, the Fri May 29 last year had a huge spike at the very close.
Do you think tonight on TV Barry O'Potus will ask congress to declare war on those dangerous cave dwellers in Afghanistan? That is right, the same cave dwellers that would sure like to have China (on the Eastern border of Afghanistan) build a pipeline across their country to our other close friends, Iran (on the Western border of Afghanistan).
I wonder how many people in the USA realize Afghanistan sits between China and Iran? Afterall, it is only the location of the longest war in American history.
LOL. That last second pump was so fast it faked out my data provider. Intraday 10 min chart shows SPY close at 105.71 while daily chart shows 105.31 (which is around where it actually was literally seconds before the close). Never saw that before.
patheeeeeeetic
AUDJPY is being ramped like achieved last night. That makes me believe that ISM is going to be a huge miss and the Fed is trying to create a cushion for tomorrows numbers.
Makes sense, especially in conjunction with other motives. And here's a little news tidbit just up on Bloomberg (1 hour before the open): "Employers in U.S. Unexpectedly Cut 10,000 Jobs in August, ADP Report Shows"
is the 5% in a calendar month some sort of sell signal threshold ?
Pardon what might be ignorance, but might the action instead have been last-minute short covering? Just exploring an alternative explanation. Any thoughts?
I'm guessing its more to do with Barry's speech. Noone else wants to buy equities. Serious question: can anyone remember a big name investor (other than creepy Uncle Warren) saying this is a great buying opportunity, right here, right now ?
Jeremy Siegel was spouting that now is a great place to buy on BBTV earlier today.
Is he a great investor though ? ie: has he got a track record of achievement in all market conditions. I thought he was just another academic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Siegel
Jeremy Seigel is a complete douchebag.
Could be part of it. The normal 3:30 ramp didn't happen and the late ramp may have caught shorts by surprise. Great observation..
There is no way that ObaMao was going to be denied the following lead in to his teleprompter reading:
"And on Wall Street today, stocks were mostly higher as consumer confidence was much higher than expected and the latest read on home prices was surprisingly strong...good news all around, next..."
-- Katie Couric
-- Brian Williams
-- Diane Sawyer
You can be quite certain that Little Timmy and Banana Ben had a hand in this afternoon's closing ramp
Used to set my clock by the 3:30 ramp. Now what am I gonna do?
Ben Bernanke is like Michael Jackson's doctor. The economy is a freak and unnatural. It does not feel good (being operated on to keep up appearances and all) so it asks for medicine it should not get. Dr. Bernanke, not knowing how to say no to his client, is gonna make the economy OD on money to the point that money is meaningless and absurd and, most importantly, no longer a store of value. He will kill the patient.
Not a joke! I still laughed out loud.
... and we can also remain confident the economy will continue to metaphorically fondle our children's genitals inappropriately for generations to come.
Rusty, it's okay to say the economy, even though it is dead, will continue to FUCK us and our children, thanks to Dr. Ben. We know the truth about what happened in those back rooms as Ben watched.
Let the Ther-rape-ee begin!
(My husband is fond of saying that there is a rapist in every Therapist).
zombie rapists. nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itSuPxx0LeM
Well, between you and me, BS honed his craft in my office some years ago. I thought for sure he'd step up and get me out of this jam as a thank you. No luck yet. But, maybe a pallet of 100s will come crashing through the courthouse on the first day of my trial and I can climb a rope ladder to freedom on the Chinook of Prosperity while everyone is distracted. I got faith in you Ben!
"Get to the choppa!" BS yelled over his shoulder as he scampered up the hemp ladder.
Nice.
So what is the next album title? We already have "Thriller". Maybe this time it's "Undead".
The ultimate album of Fed policy which trumps and incorporates all the predecessors:
Dangerous, invincible, off the wall, thriller, bad HIStory, blood on the streets.
(I admit to stretching).
A perfect analogy MsC.
@Rusty
I laughed and then had that same reaction I get when stepping on a slug in bare feet.
Exactly what I was going for.
+100
The only thing that could have made it more powerful would have been to first challenge everyone that you had a perfect metaphor for the situation and it involved MJ.
Nobody would have believed it!
I noticed the explosion in volume during the last part of the day. For example, I checked earlier and the DJI volume was like 100M; then later I saw it was 250M at close. Help a market newbie out here: how much of that is just what normally happens at the end of a month, and how much of that is what happens when there is a massive ramp job?
I'm sure some of it was short's that were caught in the late ramp, but not enough to explain the burst of volume. End of month book squaring also played but as usual, we will never really know..
This week's strategy is clear: slowly move the market up through Wed, then on Thurs hold through the (manipulated) weekly claims report... in advance of Friday's (ridiculous) NFP report for Aug...
So, Wed am open...do they let the air out first (like this morning) and then ramp again...or do they start the fire (i.e. shorts burned in effigy) in the premarket and then add napalm at 9.30am?
p.s -- long Tues am, out, then short @ 3.58:30p
Won't it look fuckin' awesome to see that big 100+ DOW futures in the bottom right hand corner of CNN...right during the speech!
Phew...man, that'll be SWEET. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
A ramp job, and yet it's still the worst August for the markets since 2001. Just think how far back they would've had to go if there were no PPT.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-slump-further-adding-to-augus...
When the Dow traded vs. an OZ of gold perhaps?
wooo...1980.
http://imgur.com/OPRUD.jpg
how do you embed images?
Find Geronimo's scull. Go.
Test
<http://i.imgur.com/OPRUD.jpg>
test 2
<img src="/sites/default/files/images/user971/imageroot/Amber.jpg" width="350" height="450"/>
Test3 last try
<p style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.75em;"><img src="/sites/default/files/images/user971/imageroot/Amber.jpg" width="350" height="450" />
8/31/2001 SPX close: 1133
Average investor:
"I really need something, anything, please please please
Ben and Timmie (as one):
"Bend over and grab your ankles"
What bull shit? They have the nerve to prosecute the guy who was "banging the close" on palladuim....but this utter bullshit on the S&P is perfectly fucking fine. How bout' a Wall Street article on this bullshit. I am so sick of these people. I just want to strangle them.
Something was leaked after hours???
Now there is a jaw dropper and I don't mean the blonde.
WTF. It's like watching shadows moving by moonlight. Something is out there. It's moving in some way. It is scaring the night predators into wild flight. What the Hell is it?
And -- do you really want to know?
WFC and DIS are lookin' tasty down here.
NEM smells like a takeover candidate. it's in the air. i can feel it. touch it. smell it. just a matter of time.
HPQ ? those are the idiots that bought palm. losers at that company. RIMM going down for the count, unless there are more idiots out there like at HPQ, and there probably are.
BAC ? p.o.s.
SLW ? brilliant company. am buying the dip around 20.
she's a MAN, baby!
Say it ain't so!
Where's the Adam's Apple?...no wait...don't answer...no, yes, no...AAAHHHHGGG!!!...I'm conflicted, but I can't be sure, cause I'm conflicted.
Mommy ;-)
She's packing vagina.
Whew...that was close. It's up...it's down...it's up...it's down...the stock market that is ;-)
Futures up 100...looks like a good short entry point.
Wish me luck with these friggin thieves.
At least you know who your dealing with.
Oh yeah...never any doubt.
I just keep clicking my heels and while chanting there's no place like SZK ;-)
So we go down 4.72% for the month instead of 5% curtesy of a spike in volume in the last few minutes. So what, we're down 3 of the last 4 months. Any added voulme on margin for the long side is welcome news of throwing more fuel on the fire. Strike a match.......there's a nice long term and ultra long term H&S pattern ready to be lit. We're not oversold anymore!
There are a lot of funds who spend the month long various ETF's. When the month end snapshot is taken, however, they have to at least pretend they are doing work, so they buy the actual equities and make it look as if they are earning their fees. Volume gets juiced, and since they need to lift offers, the market ramps. I do not know why this gets concentrated in certain months (today, May 09).
Maybe because a lot of PMs were on vacation, so they put it in cruise control, and now that they're bak, they're buying stocks for the month-end window dressing.
It's getting to the point where they don't even try to hide the end of day BS ramp job. The elephant in the room is out on the front lawn for all the neighbors to see.
OK, so we know the game and the timing. Is there any way to know the targets? If TPTB are going to be so blatant about the manipulation, might as well get some too. If we could figure out what they are playing and what the signal is, we could ride the wave. Just saying...
BTW...surprised that no one has commented on the GLD move today. Up 11 at one point. Too bad I am not a seller, just an accumulator
All of this is just fine, so far as I'm concerned, if it ends up where it feels like it will. How long can this lunacy continue before even Skynet starts lunching on its own motherboard? I just plan to be as far-removed from the final splat as I can. It's a nice picture that Benny and Co. are trying to paint...I'm sure that they have wonderful futures in cubist painting (or, basket weaving, at the very least), but this is getting to be more than just a little absurd.
Rule #1: Don't place any trades after 3:30pm EST.
Rule #2: Be very careful trading the last day of the month. The markets typically act irrational.
No surprise by this afternoon's spike...
you guys r great! keep the comedy rollin!
So is Chris Pia out of jail, or has the PPP turned its machines back on?
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