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No Volume? Don't Shut The Algos Just Yet Says An Increasingly Angry Nic Lenoir
From Nic Lenoir of ICAP
No Volume? Don't Shut The Algos Just Yet
I will send a macro update in a little bit. For now I would like to comment on the volumes or lack thereof... Today is just a dismal showing so far, and unless some bomb hits the news this afternoon this could well be the worst day on record. The attached chart is quite telling, and keep in mind that other than the short covering last week the past few weeks have already set record lows in volume for the year, so the comparison is quite telling! I understand it's a Jewish holiday but we are running at 1/3 of the volume of what would be already a very slow day!
A lot of noise has been circulating regarding high frequency and how the new market structure is detrimental to participation. Yes order front-running via flash trading and some bidding/offering patterns show that there are practices that are questionable to say the least, however I decided to pull out the chart of the volume or the Nikkei after the crash... That alone pretty much tells you LOWER VOLUMES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH MARKET STRUCTURE. The daily volumes traded on the Nikkei decreased 6-folds from 88/89 to 92 and that was without high frequency computers disturbing the market structure. So while I agree that there are definitely some problems with the current way our markets function in terms of mechanics, I think people are wildly missing the point. Besides, it's not like the market was not rigged before when brokers and sales traders would leak out selected information to their "favorite" customers. There will always be a race to informational advantage, and while it must be kept fair, the technological race is in a sense more fair than the old structure where the volume you traded commended the information you received... At least now the edge is obtained using your brain and not based on your size of your wallet. Order visibility is definitely making it difficult to move size easily, but I think part of it is also a need for participants to adapt.
The real reason why volume is so poor is that the market is fixed, I just don't know anyone who is a clever investor out there who thinks the market is fairly valued here and most buyers I talk to are motivated by the thought that the Fed will keep printing and debase the currency enough to make asset prices go up... talk about an optimist point of view: the only buyers are cynical! I was faced with an interesting challenge last night. My fiancee came home after starting a new job at a big firm asking me to help her decide on the allocation of her 401K. My first response was: I don't have a 401K (I do save, just not in a 401K), are they matching your contributions, if so only contribute up to the maximum they match. Having cleared that I looked at the options offered: company stock (ya right, you will get enough of that in bonuses and you are long just by working there), a handful of bond funds with just a vague description of the strategy/assets invested in, maybe a dozen equity funds... and that's it! Where is the "cash" box? Where is the "Gold" box? Ultra-short ETFs anyone? It became completely obvious that the 401K system is a perfect way to send savers to the slaughter house. It worked during the credit expansion of the last 40 years but now it's an awful proposition. Trying to come up with some sort of allocation in order to collect the matching program of my fiancee's employer was a lot trickier than it seemed and after tossing 33% into TIPS I really had to scratch my head to come up with the other two thirds. Other than a couple foreign equities funds that allow you to "escape" the government's and the Fed's policies partially you are pretty much stuck.
Laurence Kotlikoff has been talked about quite a bit after a couple op-eds in which he basically highlighted the fiscal gap and the absurdity of our current pension system. Volumes in stocks will not and should not pick up until we deal with it, it's time to wake smell the coffee and address a problem that everybody recognizes. People don't invest because they know the system is broken and they want nothing to do with it in its current state, as made obvious by the outflow out of equity funds. Sadly bond funds may not really save them when the bill comes due. Forget for a second that we have exported job overseas, automated manual labor, and doubled the workforce by including women (I am not talking negatively of any of these, just observing effect on labor supply) thereby devaluating labor, that this was only possible because we borrowed our growth and have now a broken world economy with producers with no demand and over-borrowed consumers who can't buy in countries that don't produce... We are still left with massive fiscal gaps. Again I bring up Japan where in the late 1990s they simply slashed pension payments. Americans are not as docile and with what is in practice a 2-year election cycle politicians are busy buying votes with money they don't have rather than tightening the government's belt. However cutting entitlements is exactly what's needed. Not for future retirees or people who start working now, absolutely not, for everybody now dead or alive (America is one of the rare countries where there are dead people collecting pension payments... this gives me very dark ideas). Retirees and people in their 40s and 50s vote, but they don't burn things up... young people do. Why is it that young people should pay the bill for a retirement system basically put in place by our great grand-parents and benefited for by our grand-parents and parents? On top of that people don't retire anymore because their pension savings don't cover their life style and so young graduates can't find jobs to pay for their parents retirements. With Illinois where pension payments are more senior than teachers' salaries in the debt structure cutting jobs, I wonder when people are going to get properly angry. I am already and it's not getting better. Voting turnout has actually gone up the past 10 years after a 30 year downtrend during which fat and happy baby boomers did not really bother showing up at the urns since both democrats and republicans were united in the demagogy of borrowing an illusory prosperity. People started voting a bit more, and it seems all they want is change, but change they are not getting. You want change? Well how about the truth for a change: we are bankrupt, your investments are in their totality worth 35 cents on the dollar including your house, you need to move in with your parents because we are slashing their pension payments and you can't afford a home. Now start from scratch! To me it sounds better than 4-day school weeks in Oregon where we are not educating the future generation so they can be even angrier and counter-productive revolutionary protesters when they grow up.
Good luck trading... from the short side!
Nic
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Interesting that the S&P can't get any traction above 1105.
Could be a nice down-side reversal day.
The market doesn't trade on technicals.
It trades on PPT pump and dump schemes from bankster algorithms perpetuated by anti-gold conspiracists from the Bilderberger group that want to drive the price of gold down so that they can buy it all before it goes to 54000. That, and they made the grocery store run out of milk!
Damn those evil Bilderberger zionists in the PPT at Goldman Sachs! I couldn't eat my bowl of Capn Crunch this morning!
Time to buy seeds, canned hamz, and ammunition so I can hide under my porch when the S&P gets to -450!
Gold down a few bucks, I knew you'd show up. Just like a cockroach coming out of his disease infested hole right after a summer shower.
I'm long Raid and Black Flag!
I come here every day, whether gold is up or not. I just don't post here all day like the perpetually unemployed conspiracy theorists...
What the f*** is your problem with gold Johnny. Generally speaking, from a trading perspective, independent of political and monetary policy convictions, why can't people just treat gold as a tradeable asset and evaluate the charts for what they are? Johnny, if you're not a paid shill then why do you have such a problem acknowledging a bullish chart for what it is? Sure, gold will go up and down, but until it has a big blow-off top, its probably going to keep going up. Why do you have such an axe to grid? Or alternatively, why not bash coal, or Apple, or retail stocks, etc...?
Because it isn't a bullish chart, for several reasons.
I've already posted all of them.
The analysis that it is a cup and handle is incorrect. It fits all the characteristics of a rising wedge.
Here are the reasons I posted before:
"Another reason why your chart doesn't qualify as a cup and handle pattern is because the "rounded bowl" of a cup and handle pattern makes lows that are lower than the previous lows on a chart.
Other things that makes the cup and handle pattern suspect include:
1. The "handle" is only supposed to retrace 1/3 the depth of the cup. The recent drop in gold was a 50% fib retracement, not 33%.
2. The pattern should occur early in a trend, not at the end of a mature trend."
The people here believe what they want to believe - even if it doesn't meet the standards of technical analysis.
That is NOT a cup and handle pattern.
You can take my word for it, or you can buy gold right now. I hope you don't do the latter.
It's already turned downward.
Why don't I talk about other things? Because the people here aren't invested in them.
I'd like to think that I'm doing a favor to these people by telling them all the warning signs that are obvious.
They don't listen though. They just blame some conspiracy every time I'm right.
It'll be the same when the gold chart breaks down.
Tolling again today?
I would be buyer at -450, maybe not before. I think a flash crash can get us down that far.
There is a job for you available at Scare-Crows-'R-Us. Please have the paperwork in yesterday. Thank you!
Hey, Johnny! You like graphs 'n' shit. Try this one on for size:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/golddaily13-.png
Whaddaya think o' that?
I think that the person that made that graph deliberately left out the rest of the graph, in an attempt to make the scenario bullish, when it is in fact a bearish rising wedge.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TwUS3GyHKsQ/TIaretgxpjI/AAAAAAAAHdI/daThKA-Mviw/s1600/gold.png
If you look at the chart over a longer period of time, you will see that your "cup and handle" is really a bearish rising wedge, with massive divergences being made on all technical indicators.
Of course, you only see what you want to see..
Here's an article about rising wedges. As you can see, all of the requisite divergences being made on the sample chart are also being made on the gold chart.
http://stockcharts.com/help/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:chart_patterns:rising_wedge_reversa
Another reason why your chart doesn't qualify as a cup and handle pattern is because the "rounded bowl" of a cup and handle pattern makes lows that are lower than the previous lows on a chart.
Other things that makes the cup and handle pattern suspect include:
1. The "handle" is only supposed to retrace 1/3 the depth of the cup. The recent drop in gold was a 50% fib retracement, not 33%.
2. The pattern should occur early in a trend, not at the end of a mature trend.
Gold hasn't done this. It has been making higher lows all along, which qualifies as a rising wedge, instead of a cup and handle.
http://stockcharts.com/help/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:chart_patterns:cup_with_handle_cont
Everybody has differing opinions on that.
Here are two articles with different conclusions using the same graphs!
Pick your poison, triple top or cup-and-handle...
Precious Metals Equity Index Forms Triple Top
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/precious-metals-prec...
Technical Targets for Gold, Silver, and the Gold Stocks
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/sentiment-technicals...
The cup and handle pattern is wrong, for multiple reasons which I have already pointed out.
Everybody has differing opinions about everything. Some people's are incorrect.
Long term gold bulls are in this group.
Also, the S&P will start a new downtrend tomorrow.
It will find support at 1075ish.
Hey Johnny, I thought I told you to go get your fuckin shine box!
total open interest in gold futures is at that point.... also divergence is a bitch, and the gold bugs index triple top....
.
That's your most articulate statement to date.
LOL, and it still got junked.
Yeah, what - 4 days now? I've been staring at that big 6 month trend line on the daily chart all week.
Nic - spot on, 401(k)s suck, only good thing is matching programs, and while I'd love to short the crap out of the market I don't because I'm worried that the market won't actually reflect fundamentals as you describe due to intervention by gov't which prolongs the time until the collapse. Here in Oregon we apparently cut a few fridays for public schools to reduce teachers' pay instead of a number of pointless programs and handouts and tax breaks, good stuff...must be taking pointers from the federal government I guess.
"It became completely obvious that the 401K system is a perfect way to send savers to the slaughter house."
Best comment of his whole rant.
Agreed 100%. My brother stops by yesterday, wants me to look at his 401k plan. He is in the default recommendation plan from the company's Prudential rep. I dig in - they have him in a step-program, where the contribution increases by 1% gross salary every August! He had no idea (sales guy who never read the novel of paperwork that comes with a 401k). Fund was allocated all to US equities/bonds - no cash, no commodities, no APAC/EMEA - just good ole ponzi! My recommendation: stop the increases, contribute to max match and open an IRA (PM).
Noticed today that California's head bean counter, Chiang, announced a 3.9% increased tax collection versus projection. That means the IOUs can be delayed beyond October, he says.....yippeee.
Point is, I bet the state coffers got some unexpected help from liquidations in 401-Ks. IRS prospers too.
Savings muscle is gone for the peeps, now they're gnawing on the tax-favored bone to survive. I won't hold my breath waiting for the FTB and the IRS to cut them a break, that's for sure.
Get Angry Bitchez!
GET angry? For me, angry is the new normal.
Everything you need to know about gold's chart.
http://stockcharts.com/help/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:chart_patterns:rising_wedge_reversa
First, study the example.
Now, study gold's chart.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TwUS3GyHKsQ/TIaretgxpjI/AAAAAAAAHdI/daThKA-Mviw/s1600/gold.png
Notice the similarities? D'oh!
"Gold to 54000! ROFLMAO!"
Bingo. Give the man a cigar. Of course, trying to stuff all that Social Security money into the stock market starting a few years ago takes on a new meaning once you reread the above statement again. Let me rephrase it for you below using SS.
The plan was to milk a few more years, and possibly a decade, out of the Ponzi by bulldozing the SS money into the black hole of Wall Street.
don't you think that was the point? i mean, from the get-go, its been obvious that the 401(k) structure was put into place to benefit the banks and the corporations....not the actual person doing the "saving"....
Of course. The Wall Street Ponzi isn't "new" so much as on extended life. The one thing that ensures a long lived Ponzi is to find more suckers to buy in. The 401(k) accomplished this, bring sucker investing to the great unwashed. For those first in, they did well. For those getting in now, good luck with that. Same for the SS system.
Of course, the SS was always a Ponzi as well. But then they thought to support one Ponzi (Wall Street) with another Ponzi (SS) to get Ponzi squared. Still waiting on Ponzi cubed but it looks like US Treasuries are on base.
Everything is always a conspiracy to you people.
Grocery store out of milk? Blame the shadowy bilderberger conspiracy!
Gold down 15 cents after 11 days of increases? It's the international bankster cartel PPT Goldman Sachs!
You should read the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Watts, great piece of investigative journalism. Using the word in itself discredits the claim due to the negative implications. Not everything bad is done intentionally, but assuming that everything bad is not done intentionally is quite naive.
JB is here for entertainment purposes only. I could care less what he has to say because he has zero credibility. Anyone who croons about himself like a 12 year old who just won a free ice cream cone is usually full of shit.
JB is like a parrot. At first it sounds like you're having a conversation with someone relatively intelligent, but you soon figure out it's all crackers and dry mouth that's talking.
LOL. Thanks for the laugh.
LOL.
This is coming from the man who believes that the S&P is going to drop to 450 and that gold is a sound investment.
You can make fun of whatever you want.
You're the sucker holding the bag on gold.
Only a couple of months more to liquidate before it burns your ass!
I believe you mean Naomi Klein, not Watts?
not that there's anything wrong with Naomi Watts.
Indeed. I'd be interested if she had a book named "The Shock Doctrine", too!
Naomi Klein it is and an excellent book for those who wish to see the bigger picture of social engineering by way of economic, military and natural disaster.
http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0312427999/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1284061005&sr=8-1
Hey, CD, have you seen this graph (via Ritholtz)? It's a dooooozy!
Fascinating chart in the BIS Quarterly Review that helps to explain how any banking crisis can go viral, infecting the entire globe:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/bank-interconnec...
Blah blah blah. "I'm a conspiracy theorist that tries to pretend I'm intelligent by using a Psychology 1001 term."
Everybody has differing opinions on that.
Here are two articles with different conclusions using the same graphs!
Pick your poison, triple top or cup-and-handle...
Precious Metals Equity Index Forms Triple Top
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/precious-metals-prec...
Technical Targets for Gold, Silver, and the Gold Stocks
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/sentiment-technicals...
Read the other 3 times I've replied to your copied and pasted post.
Looks like Marxist revisionism. Howard Zinn, the famous commie, really likes the book.
You're wrong, CD!
I read a conspiracy theory blog six months ago that says so.
Source?
Oh, I don't have a source, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!!!
See? I just won the argument. You got smoked buddy. I'd say you got quite the atomic wedgie.
JB, what are you blabbering about now?
Poor JB. I gave him an atomic wedgie on another thread and like the 6 year old that he is, he's following me around trying to get even.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/charting-great-bear-market-fund-flow-vacuum
Come on JB, try to keep up like a good little boy.
You posted a picture from your gay porn collection. That's hardly giving me a wedgie.
All it's doing is making you drool, wishing that it was your hands on that guy's underwear.
Every time I read "JB", I think, "jailbait".
Just my .02
I think "juvenile bravado".
The kid is full of piss and vinegar and thinks he's got the whole world figured out because his junior college instructors have explained it all to him.
Whatchoo talkin about, Willis? Johnny Bravo? Dude is badass. I heard he wears Fibonacci suits and drives an Algo Turbo.
He's figuring it out on a daily basis then. Earlier he was calling for a big push up based on stochastics and now, apparently, the market trades on gold suppression schemes.
I'm having a hard time distinguishing between sarcasm and stupidity with Jail Bait.
Yes, I called for a big push up in the markets.
AND IT HAPPENED.
Where's the "nice call JB?"
As far as the "gold suppression PPT zionist bilderberger talk", I'm just making fun of the conspiracy theorists here who are perpetually WRONG on their trading ideas, and then blame everybody but themselves when they are wrong.
Everybody has differing opinions on that.
Here are two articles with different conclusions using the same graphs!
Pick your poison, triple top or cup-and-handle...
Precious Metals Equity Index Forms Triple Top
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/precious-metals-prec...
Technical Targets for Gold, Silver, and the Gold Stocks
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/sentiment-technicals...
What'd ya do? Copy and paste your last post?
This will be the third time that I've mentioned:
1. Cup and handles occur early in trends.
2. The "bowl" in a cup and handle pattern should be LOWER than previous lows. This did not happen on the gold chart.
3. The handle in a cup and handle pattern should only retrace 1/3 the depth of the bowl. Last drop in gold was a 50% fib retracement of the highs off of the bowl.
All three things point to no cup and handle.
Triple top would be valid if the upper trendline didn't make new highs.
I bet that we get a slightly higher high in order to suck the bulls in, but then again, the trend is already reversing.
(STO and RSI have already turned south on GLD, other indicators have massive negative divergences.)
It's bearish.
Just remember what I said when it comes true!
Target 1450 is bullshit because there isn't enough room for technical indicators to get that high.
Every time I read "JB", I think...
Justifiable Bravocide.
I just hear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLnWf1sQkjY
Come find me then...
He sounds a lot like Master Bates. What ever happened to that guy? Hmmm.
Have you been living in a cave?
I already told everybody that this is my new account.
At least he's not living in his mom's basement.
My mom doesn't have a basement, and I don't talk to her anyway.
At least I can spell "Raccoon."
Notice the two Cs?
Yup, I read a conspiracy theory that said the CIA was dealing drugs. How Ludicrous! They'd never do that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Bd6lmpIFI
JB
Very juvenile. Unbelievable.
Out of all of Nic's great posts on the markets, it seems like his emotions have caught up to him in this post. Did you catch that?
Also, i didnt understand the 4day school day in OR...is that actually true?
pretty sure they did this in some counties in GA - not that it matters
Maybe my post on his thread two days ago had some effect on Nic? Nah.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/confused-summer-market-bounty-it#comment-568067
He came back from vacation recently, had time to relax and think, got back into the madness, and realized we are eally ucked. Sorry for using the handle, but it is too appropriate.
I am a native of OR. It is a beautiful state, but not the most enlightened populace. Cutting down trees and fishing do not take too much intellectually. Ohhh, I forgot the welfare state that migrated there from California.
SPY and the ES are simply not being allowed to sell off today even though they keep trying. PPT at work.
To be fair, they did lose their 1% gains from that unemp report this morning..
Went short the nasdaq[nqz10] today.. immediately, buying hit until I capitulated at my stop with internals exploding.. then, magically buyers disappeared..
Its as if they were saying.. we got you.. AGAIN!
It's pissing me off..
Luckily I bought myself more time with silver [yiz10] futures..
Nothing seems to work right these days!
You don't want to see me angry.
Wow I didn't know Nic was a BEAR!
Well said Nic
All your volume are belong to us, bitchez
All your volume are belong to us, bitchez
Burning things up is also voting.
To quote Fortran, "There isn't enough fire in the whole of Hell to clean this mess up. But I'm going to give it a try anyway."
Cannon fodder on both sides of the political divide always consists of the young. The old(er), who think they have too much to lose, actually have much less to lose (when using years of life remaining as the measure) but they hold the purse strings. Thus the only way for the young to get into the game is for some to die for entry into the game. Or to burn down the gaming hall.
BTW I volunteer Johnny Bravo for "First Cannon". He's being rather obnoxious because Gold is down a few bucks today. Of course, where was he earlier this week? Click the link for JB getting an atomic wedgie.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/charting-great-bear-market-fund-flow-vacuum
Wow. I mentioned it was down once.
Yeah, that's "really annoying." In fact, you've posted more links to your picture, hoping that somebody notices your beginner-level skills at HTML.
And now you keep posting a link to your gay porn collection, thinking that you are clever.
And yet, the less astute among us here follow you.
Yet nearly everyone here junks you JB. I wonder why?
Shoo fly, shoo. Go back to the turd you were resting under before Gold dropped a few bucks and woke you up.
"Go back to the turd you were resting under..."
C'mon, CD, don't bring me into this.
LOL
My apologies. I stepped in a pile of JB and I've been tracking him all around Zero Hedge for the last hour or so. Now I need to grab a mop and some bleach and clean the mess up.
CD, why wrestle with a pig? You know the outcome.
<hangs head in shame>
I know. I usually try to shut my mouth and see the big picture. But every now and then the ego fires up and I just want to stuff that corn cob up the pigs ass. Today was one of those days. I'm human and as much as I try to remain level and centered, sometimes this train goes way off the tracks.
Thanks for the reminder to stay out of the pen.
CD "i am human" human is the least of us. If you are merely human you have not yet woke up. The life force you are ...is supposed to manage being human.
I know, i am a pain, but utterly true.
right you are MH. A question to ask those among us: have you ever actually, truly tried to think about "what" you are? Yep, the answer is "I DON'T KNOW!"
What is "human" but a "label" we have attributed to our "selves"? What are we, before language, before thought? "What" are we?
??
you are high (I suspect)
The funny thing is that the idiots on this blog follow you, CD, thinking that you're intelligent because you use a psychology term from your first semester of community college. (before you dropped out to work at BK.)
And yet, I'll come back tomorrow and you guys will STILL be losing money, when you could have just followed my advice and made some.
The funny thing is that people on this site follow people like you, who perpetually make wrong calls over and over.
Then when you're wrong, you want to blame whatever the conspiracy du jour is.
It's really pathetic.
At least when I make a wrong call, I can say "I was wrong."
When you're wrong every day you say "Oh, read this fringe conspiracy from gold salesmen, it explains it all why I don't know jack shit about investing."
CD, both you and JB have good info in your posts, but you both destroy your status and bearing with your petty and juvenile mocking , baiting and bickering. Yours, Maverick
lmao
JB as cannon fodder is kinda off though. I think he'll probably turn out to be the informer for the banksters' "national security state".
I'm already making 80 bajillion dollars a year working for JPM, Nadler, and Goldman Sachs!
Why would I need to be an informer?
You people need to lay off the dope and conspiracy theories. No wonder you lose your money.
fuck dude - you have seriously lost sight of the purpose of posting. Some how your ego got bruised, no one of any intelligence here gives two shits. Grow up, learn to fucking move on, and stop wasting everyone's time. if you have an intelligent contribution to make, then great. Otherwise - S.T.F.U.
I agree. I had a good conversation with JB the other day. Now he's back to trolling and trying to poke at people. No thanks.
STFU - love it
I saw that conversation and I thought JB was having an out-of-body experience. I didn't expect it to last and it didn't. There could be several explanations for this behaviour, some of which are dismissed out-of-hand as not likely.
But what is clear is that JB wishes to disrupt and demoralize. Which is why I have no respect for the person. Bring something to the table or leave. Or lurk with the mouth zipped. Sure we all kid around and even get out of hand at times. But not 95% of the time.
I don't know this person at all but on a hunch I will posit "off the clock"
If you follow my meaning.
I do and it was one of the explanations many reject. People so wish to believe there is just an angry or immature person posting on the other end that they refuse to even consider black ops. Too close to home to think about those things. Much easier to accept the concept as a ball of gas that never actually needs to be acted upon or grasped.
I've suggested before that JB is not one person but a few folks doing as much damage as they can. There have been instances where it would have been physically impossible to make all the posts he did, up and down the comment line, chronologically. The tone changes as well as the writing style. There was a time when "his" grammar and syntax was obviously inconsistent. Go figger.
Master Bater gets junked even when he/she/it posts ".", so I wonder, if MB is off the clock, I gotta say the effort is a FAIL at counterinsurgency. JB's original handle tells me something other than black ops...more like a narcissist that chubs up when junked, taking it as a badge of honor that the thread centers around its "contributions". I from here on out will ignore it.
Now TD as muckraker, that's another story...I'd buy into that. ZH is nothing but getting the "burn this muthafucka down" message out.
If you were wrong on all of your stock market calls, you'd have nothing left but to post conspiracy theories from fringe news sources.
This is the muckraking aspect.
.
Everybody has differing opinions on that.
Here are two articles with different conclusions using the same graphs!
Pick your poison, triple top or cup-and-handle...
Precious Metals Equity Index Forms Triple Top
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/precious-metals-prec...
Technical Targets for Gold, Silver, and the Gold Stocks
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/sentiment-technicals...
It's a rising wedge. I already posted why the cup and handle is not a good call.
1. Cup and handles' cups only retrace 1/3 of the previous bowl. The last pullback in gold was 50%, not 33%.
2. Cup and handles occur early in trends. Gold is in a mature trend.
Well if nothing else this thread was good for a laugh. Entertainment has some value.
Today, JPM milked the bank sheet. Do I have to spell it out for you? Of course [blank] was part of it! Rhetorical, yes. You, where is logic? Gold IS manipulated by CENTRAL BANKS to leverage the system ie debt!
Not in context in response to, "There is so much wrong with you people [paraphrasing]", 'I will tell you all about it.'
Gold is money, Johnny.
Okay, so it wasn't manipulated the ten days in a row that it was up, but the 11th day, when it goes down, THEN it is manipulated.
Not likely...
This is simply a top - those nice lines you see on 5 minute GS/GOOG are simply the dumb money buying up the larger positions being liquidated by the pros. Look for the next downtrend to start today if not tomorrow.
Lenoir just keeps putting up the best day-to-day posts on ZH, bar none.
+10
"Retirees and people in their 40s and 50s vote, but they don't burn things up... young people do."
I gave up on collecting SS years ago but if they try and take my bank savings, 401k or company retirement they will find out some of us in our 50s own guns, know how to shoot them and can pick out a target fast!
+1
Well said! Go Nic!
NICE RANT NIC!!!!!
BEAUTIFUL!
Nic Lenoir most probably did not close his short positions below 1050.00. I can understand his anger...
Amen brother!!! Great rant Nic, I loved it all and can relate. (I'm one of the younger paying for the older, expecting not to see a DIME myself!) Time to stop the SHORT TERM thinking and SHORT TERM solutions. Think long term. Bring the pain, and have it done with so we can build things in a more proper and stable fashion. We need more politicians who really don't want to be in office, but go reluctantly to serve the good of the COUNTRY, not the good of their constituents.
Right on, kid.
"Voting turnout has actually gone up the past 10 year..."
Yeah! It means more pseudo-informed IDIOTS armed with a vote are using it giving, us things like BuShit and Obama. (Yes, I know that The American People do not vote for The Office of President)
Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.
Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.
Nice quote Alien-IQ.. very, very nice..
Those who cast the votes, they decide nothing. Those who count the votes, they decide everything. -- Joseph Stalin
Although attribution that has been disputed...
It feels more like a ton of liquation going on an more peeps leaving the "risk" game than getting on more risk, given -11% Paulson, -5% Moore Cap and -6% on Tudor, the big boys are raising cash rather than jumping in -especially given the asshanding in the bond market today.
Just one correction... we really don't want to forget this for even one second - this is the core problem statement.
Wow... Looks like Nic just had a Howard Beale moment.
"What has 2 thumbs and loves rants? ----- Thiss guyyyyyy.... (he says pointing to himself)"
I say fuck yeah. We be broke, bitchez, and it ain't no lah. Tried to tell a few friends about accumulating some (not a lot, some) precious metal each month, and they looked at me like I was from another fucking planet.
I actually had a friend say to me "I like how the system works." Scared me a bit, but at least he's my friend with the most guns. I know where I'm going to be keeping my gold at.
To me it sounds better than 4-day school weeks in Oregon where we are not educating the future generation so they can be even angrier and counter-productive revolutionary protesters when they grow up."
Too funny...,ROTFLMAO
And very true!
SHORT IT ALL - TO ZERO!!!!
We will go up until shorts are out of hair to pull out, just as longs found out at 1040.
Oh look, fast stochastics is back in overbought territory...
As ever Nic thanks for an interesting and thought provoking post.
I can understand the 401k dilemmna. I have been going through the same. I am exposed to bond funds and may have to get out soon but there is no cover unless you want equity funds. The international funds in my 401k are nothing to write home about.I wish there was a cash option.
Added to that these accounts are nothing but money generators for the financial institutions that manage them. The fees, the potential hidden fees all generate a healthy sum for these FI's. Thats why we have a spawning of all these tax saving accounts. For college education of children, IRA, Roth IRA, 401K's, etc, etc. because at the end of the day its one more way Wall Street can get some action on your money.
Just saw Maria interviewing Trumka on CNBC. Trumka ate Santelli for a light snack and spit him out in little tea-partier pieces...and with great good humor.
At least CNBC is finally reporting...via Epperson & Pisani...that the jobs number was a guess due to fabricated "estimates" from states that didn't report....just as Zero Hedge reported right after the number came out.
arrrrgh, im melting.
Boy, All this bad news is having a real effect on the market. Look at that that Dow take a plunge. All the way down to +47.
Kind of status quo for now. If you're bearish or just don't like what is happening, I think you'll be caught off guard one morning when you least expect it. A "Black Swan" in disguise will appear with a wing span of -800 Dow points. That should be enough to convince the dip buyers that this is no longer the "rule of thumb".
Ain't gonna happen. There's no one left to sell in a panic and those that are still around can be absorbed by the PPT.
They win, it's that simple. They have a fucking choke hold on the market now.
You are right on the money. They won. It's blatenly obvious.
True, true. However, a choke hold is only until it's no longer a choke hold. In other words, that's not the way this will end. It'll just take longer than you expoect or want it to. I feel the same way about that part.
The PPT will buy, all the way to the bottom.
If everyone remembers, the 'flash crash' was met with 'flash mega-buying' immediately.
It's a fucking con. Accept it.
Not confident with that kind of support. Doubtful it'll happen the same way.
Maybe the plan is to get everyone out of the market and into the USD. Once the boat is full, they will crash the USD. Just a thought.
Great rant...and totally worthless, unfortunately.
This 'market' is nothing more than a fucking video game now. It's completely a fraud and will not fall again, period.
If the god damn blatantly obvious auto-pilot program at 2pm doesn't show you that they hold all the fucking aces, I don't know what will.
Vapors for volume...give me a break, that's actually HELPFUL to their goal.
Look at the SPX just cruise into orbit based on absolute jack shit.
Whatever. I, for one, say they can do whatever...and I mean WHATEVER they fucking want to. Here's a mind blower, what makes you even sure that the market actually is up? Do you have access to who what trading what and when? Is there an actual paper trail to verify it? Why can this be manipulated directly at the servers?
Give me a fucking break. This is just a propoganda tool at this point. Anyone expecting actual organic or legit movement is a fool, at this point.
Amen to both Boiler above and Mephis below.
"If the god damn blatantly obvious auto-pilot program at 2pm doesn't show you that they hold all the fucking aces, I don't know what will."
Great line Boilermaker. And heartily agreed.
So why the fuck did you get a delete vote on your post? Someone's pure ears and eyes. ?
No volume and almost no volatility. To be in early September with implied vol this low is very odd.
Market looks so complacent to me. European gains today were slow, steady & on the back of nothing at all after bearish news on the open. It made no sense at all. I think fund managers are out of ideas & picking up equities by default, certainly in London that's happening. If we start to roll over, they have no conviction and no profit buffer to play with, they will be back out again quick.
Like TF at the top of the post I was looking to see if this market reversed today. Doesnt look like it currently. That would be too simple, too sensible. Instead we melt up on POMO money and flash orders.
Am keeping an eye on the VIX, VDAX, VSTOXX looking to load up on puts when the vol capitulates. After that happens then nobody is protected and we can move down fast. I dont know what the trigger will be - in this fractal shitshow it could be nothing at all - but just like Nic everyone I know who is watching these markets knows we are at least 20% too high.
Complacent is "the word" that's for certain. Vols are ridiculous but supportive of your claim. I think the Atlantic Capital write-up from yesterday is "spot on" with the notion of a "Black Swan" in disguise ( my definition) event which could be as mundane as a jobless claim revision proving out the "estimate" theory or something like that. Can't imagine an event trigger to be a "major" European Bank in distress, raging deficits, deflation, social discontent, collapsing home sales, or 10% UE. NOT!
Off-topic (sort of), but my wife who knows nothing about any of this stuff came home with some cheap wine the other day (she likes cheap Reising's). The wine was called "Black Swan." Was a funny moment - but had no one to share it with.
Save it for the Event, then explain to her why you did.