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LiveDeal Flash Smash Sends Stock Up 365%, Nukes Shorts
Today's flash smash comes courtesy of microcap company LiveDeal (Nasdaq: LIVE, market cap around $3 MM) where thanks to a rogue (presumably - there are no news in the name) algorithm the stock shoots up from an opening price of $4.79 all that way to $22.25 in about one minute: a gain of 365%, which is too rich even for KKR's new prop group. And no, this is not a fat finger as the QR screen below shows: the algo was busted enough to lift every single offer in a row - there were virtually no downticks for the span of over 15 seconds. The result: 1,679 shorts end up with an almost 400% loss (one of the benefits of unlimited downside shorting). And as the stock has very little liquidity it is very likely that assorted brokers took matters into their own hands and force covered all those who were underwater and losing substantially. And the cherry on top: not a single trade has been busted. In other words, exchanges are more than happy to unwind trades immediately when an algo loses money, but when an algo creates thousands of forced buy ins and retail investors are left with huge losses, then no luck on the DK. What is scariest is that HFT has now gone microcap: with Apple, Amazon, BofA and Netflix bled dry, it is about time the robotic scalping crew found new pastures.
The chart says it all:
Stock recap during the surge:
Have fun shorting this one
And here is Nanex' take:
Quite a run-up. Interesting that the bid kept pinging back down to previous levels. Note it sticks there at approx. 15:12:26 and the spread (including the BBO on both sides) is over $12.
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Dude, WTF is the deal with NetFlix? It went up around 12% today. I ask you, WTF? PE of 70-billion? Doesn't even pay a dividend? WTF!!
Per the Healthcare Reform Act every American will be required to have a NetFlix account, so they can receive the .gov's weight loss videos produced by our obese Surgeon General, or pay an annual penalty of $2,500 to the IRS.
Didn't you read the bill?
I believe you are onto something here.
I hear that the stop smoking movie featuring our Marlboro-Man-In-Chief is nicely done. Unfortunately, the updated version of the public health classic, "The Film," stars Bill and Hilary as well as Barney Frank and friends...ewww!
Someone once said (I forget who) that good humor often has an element of truth to it.
I thought its because they announced live streaming videos of Johnny Wadd and Ron Jeremy.
John Holmes !
Yes, The man was bigger than life
Is avatar borrowing now OK?
You didn't mention the free popcorn with extra buttery-stuff. I'm an American dammit, I know my rights.
Per language inserted into the new (and improved) 2010 Health Care Improvement Miranda Act.
Cougar, consider yourself properly Miranda-sized. :>)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning
Oh, good. Green shoots for personal trainers. <sarc>
If by that you mean wheatgrass juice, they can have all mine they want.
Exhaustion gap, just like Google, Apple, and everything else. QE2 might not be so strong now that all economic signals seem to be in recovery. Banksters now have an excuse to crash the markets and VAPORIZE the price chasers! :D
so are trades canceled for burned shorts?
Uuh, NO!
Screw the prosecutions; where's my gun...
Crapped shorts are messy and uncomfortable, or so I hear...
Wow, no cancelations. There is no proportionality to it all...
Upside to the moon, downside 10% cap. BANKSTER RULES!
O/T
Nice finish for TBT....
Heads i win, tails you lose environment.
the moral of the story - the fed, and their henchmen/women in the form of PD's and their HFT cyborgs have implemented the complete 'NO SHORTING of this or any market - ever' policy!! oh my god, i am unable to eat one more CRAZY pill!! someone please shoot me!!
As long as anyone not a machine is in this market, they are a fool. Chasing return, you are a fool. Feeding the wealthy your desperate pennies until you die penniless.
It needs to burn. It will burn. It is already burning.
After that, we start over. Not a moment before. After.
I am a machine, and you're not reading this.
I am a nanorobot, and can infiltrate any machine at will.
Meet my lady friend Fortran:
http://www.madscienceunlimited.com/fiction/theexchange.html
Think you can "infiltrate" some of that? Well do ya, punk?
:)
Damn. Fortran sounds hot if it wasn't for the blue 'Avatar' skin color, but I can live with that. Hmm Hmm Hmm.. short and busty.
She stacks em like she's a brick house. Maybe a woman doesn't actually need 4 trillion computational units ... but they look mighty fine under a pink angora sweater!
Fortran lounging in a server room gives a whole new meaning to the word racked.
I'm hazarding a guess here, but perhaps like me, you have some respect for Ada Lovelace:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
According to Wikipedia, she was the first computer programmer. (Though I think the first programmer was the person that invented the abacus).
You guess well my friend. The character Fortran was almost going to be Ada, but the former simply held more geek appeal. Plus they use FORTRAN algos for fast simulations, and Fortran (the blue girl) is the fastest simulation ever attempted. Woe unto man ...
Another brilliant gal in fine wrappings would be Hedy Lamarr. Actress, sex pot, and inventor of radio transmission frequency hopping. No fucking kidding. Was God even thinking?!?
heh heh
Thanks for the Hedy Lamarr info! Would have never discovered it on my own.
Fortran? That is so dorky. Does the story mention her sidekick, Cobol, and her dog, Java?
Her side-kick is a tiger.
Give the girl a break. She just looks sexy, she can't help it if she's compiled.
I'm such a big dork that I actually write Fortran programs as part of my job. How do I code up a hot chick with large breasts?
It's a looooong story. Coming (someday) to a bookstore near you :)
Spoiler: Use an optimizing opensource compiler, look to your compile time flags, wash your glassware fully between runs and for the love of God don't feed anything that starts to compile itself. Sure she's cute. But is all that really worth being electrocuted and set on fire? Oh that's right you're a coder, dumb question. Carry on then!
+1 that was funny :)
so, the moral of the story is to buy some microcaps with a little short interest and pray the algos pick em up?
Use GOV.
Pick up a few bucks worth of microcaps, program some crazy-ass sell triggers, and see what happens! Sounds like fun. Bot hunting. Kind of like ice fishing I guess.
the bots are multiplying and spreading! what's next? the pink sheets? LOL.
Drugger La Roche.
So your saying that the shorts took it in the shorts today?
And of course, it is headquartered in Las Vegas, NV
Chipotle beats. Up $5
AMZN flat
It all depends on who is making your burrito.
The surcharge for guacamole is overkill, but damn it is good.
AAPL down 2
If that is flat, I hate to down on amzn...you might want to look again.
Flat?!? You may want to tap on your screen. AMZN is down like a hooker for $1k.
AXP going vertical..........
Or not....
AXP going down like a $1 hooker
It is apparent that Robo is desperate...
For every stock chart he posts, anyone could easily counterpost a commodity or miners ETF that would blow it away. I see no valid reason why any fund would chase stocks when the world is gobbling up real things ("stuff") before the coming trade barriers go up......... Jim Rogers didn't become a retired millionaire in his 30s by following the funds in the flood of dissipation. He did his homework and checked the valuations and inventory levels. Bond and dividend yields are at generational lows..... and bullish sentiment is getting irrational. Yet the world ignores natural gas, uranium, and FOOD.
http://dailyreckoning.com/the-truth-behind-the-chinese-rare-earths-embargo/
Under the Hood
Natural gas below $3.50 is intriguing
hahahahaha
hehehehe
hohoho
Funny business all around.
This whole stinking pile of dog crap will be destroyed forever.
And no one will care a wit.
figures. the markets are 100% farce, and couldn't get to this special place if not for criminal "oversight" all around. Sodom.
79% of stocks above their SMA 50, 68% are above their SMA 200. Pretty much just waiting to see what happens to the dollar, if there is no Plaza Accord-esque decision (which I guessing there won't be), I'm actually not sure the dollar falls much from here, I'm actually thinking it starts to strengthen from here, which would be completely fucking horrible for stocks. Regardless, just wanted to point out that the dollar tells the story, particularly EUR/USD.
If you ever wanted to keep people from shorting, a few more of these oughta be enough to freak them out.
Mission accomplished!
If your ultimate mission is to bust out EVERYONE, you first eliminate the shorts, then crash the markets.
Sounds like a plan. When do we start?
What? It's already started? Dammit, why didn't someone tweet me?
Yeah, when all of the shorts are driven out of the market (I am surprised any left over at the moment) there will be no one left to put a floor on prices during a crash. When the monster of flash crashes hits all stocks will go bidless.
I tried posting a sob story on ZH about losing my retirement shorting, hoping to make them think I capitulated.
Didn't work.
600k shares out. think not.
This is like the ultimate gaming casino... we know it's rigged, but we could get rich on a pixie dusted algo.
Place your bets!
Less like a casino, more like a lottery.
In a casino you lose money while a cute sex kitten in fishnets brings you a cocktail and then lets you look down her cleavage as she purrs do you want anything else?
In the lottery, you lose money only after you stand in line at the 7-Eleven for 15 minutes behind the sweaty smelly fat-ass welfare cheat who can't decide which of the $1 scratchers he wants and then he takes another 15 minutes at the register to scratch them with his lucky bottle opener. Then he swears for 15 more minutes because he lost $8. And remember you stood in line for all that first, then you lost your money.
And in a casino, they have great wall-to-wall carpets that you swear Sherman's March to the Sea would have got lost in. That's the real difference right there.
And the odds are better at a casino and the experience much more fun! I will never forget being in New Orleans a few years ago and staying up for most of one night learning the finer points of 3-card poker. An somewhat older gentleman at the table gave me some pointers and he was the epitome of Southern charm!
Disclaimer: My dad taught me how to read a racing form when I was six.
Your dad was smart. Be sure you pass on some of that sage wisdom to another worthy youngster before you die. The old ways are fading fast ...
Waddell & Reed continue to wreak havoc on the financial system! When is someone going to get the Terror of Overland Park under control?
This is really just over the top. They could at least be tasteful about screwing people.
Fey. What kind of service do you expect from a $2 whore?
Yes, those 1600 shares short were the reason for this. Not only did they have to cover, but they were forced to buy 100,000 extra shares just for being stupid.
These melt ups and down are as old as methuselah, nothing to do with hft , or anything else.
So, once these piranha algorithms have taken out all retail investors, will they cooperate and take down all the big pension funds?
Fuck all chance of me investing my savings in this fraud.
The algo HFT's have gone organic, that is, free-ranging. No more sub penny/peanut picking competition from others, now it's fair game to all involved.
Wait until they step on the wrong toes, it's going to happen and the lights will flicker.
Are there any firsthand accounts of the poor suckers getting butt rammed by this shit? Anyone see anything posted anywhere?
People jumping off the Space Needle?
I know that the market can cancel (or not) trades at it's sole discretion but this is really the icing on the cake. Absoutely disgusting.
Looks like a test run model on how to massacre the micro shorts going in an illogical " other direction ". A manageable sample of 1,679 burndowns. All systems go from here.
ABC just said TARP made 8%. Cough. Who knew.
Btw what happened to halts and that fucking 10% CB?
I've got it. Anybody that's dumb enough to still be in this rigged casino (like me), should place orders for a single(1) share on as many different ones as they can, at a ridiculous low price.
Overwhelm dem *****ezzz!
Aww... too much work... EOM.
I posted a comment on another article about HFT being a little bit like the Wild West. Seems like there are no standards at all. (Also mentioned that I was approached by a HFT recruiter but I know my limitations - I am self taught and hack code when necessary). I think many of the HFT algorithms are doing something as simple (and retarded) as this (would be fun figuring out what the x and y variables are though):
if ($x < $y) {
$x++ ;
}
else {
die "see yah suckaaz:\n";
}
#thanks to ZH for shining a light on this
I've always wondered why the HFT didn't start with the microcap stocks first. They are so easily manipulated and the pinksheets have many suckers that are waiting to make a quick buck by a turn of a few thousands of a penny move.
Have to tempt the newbies with a few wins first, to have them ante up to bigger games.
Scalp them early and they don't come back.
Sort of like a grand order of procession.
Also check out QCOM $2 insta-drop. If your reasoning is correct, those trades would be busted.
Then there was an up spike in QCOM 40 minutes later or so. I bet these trades weren't busted ;p
LiveDeal is nothing compared to the run up in Clean Diesel Technologies (CDTID)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CDTID&t=1y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=
0.82 on Oct. 21
44.38 intrady high (so far) on 10/26/10
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic.
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Per the Healthcare Reform Act every American will be required to have a NetFlix account, so they can receive the .gov's weight loss videos produced by our obese Surgeon General, or pay an annual penalty of $2,500 to the IRS.
Didn't you read the bill?
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