HFT

UPDATE: *NYSE REVIEWING TRADES FOR 'AOL,' 'NBR,' 'MPC,' 'LO,' 'CNQ' FROM 3:49:00PM-3:51:00PM ET

By now it is clear to everyone that the market is rigged, manipulated and broken. But this rigged, manipulated and broken? Honestly, we don't know, hence our question: is this now "normal" or are these just the death throes of a "market" busted beyond all repair?

Having questioned whether Tim Geithner leaked every Fed announcement to the banks during his tenure (but did not mention it in his memoirs) and shown that traders acted on information at faster than the speed of light (and thus were indeed aware of leaked decisions ahead of time), it should be no surprise that a new research paper has found “robust evidence” that some traders have been getting early news of U.S. Federal Reserve rate announcements and then trading on it during the Fed’s media lockup. The trading anomalies that Bernile and his colleagues spotted begin about 15 minutes before the news embargo is lifted and continue at a fairly even pace and are "statistically significant and in the direction of the subsequent policy surprise." So - are the markets rigged?

“I am often asked why I do not support a more rapid deceleration of our purchases, given my agnosticism about their effectiveness and my concern that they might well be leading to froth in certain segments of the financial markets. The answer is an admission of reality: We juiced the trading and risk markets so extensively that they became somewhat addicted to our accommodation of their needs… you can’t go from Wild Turkey to cold turkey overnight."

- Fed Governor Richard Fisher

A division of the U.S. military known as the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO), which studies threats to national security (i.e., the status quo’s grip on power) has listed Bitcoin amongst a number of potential terrorist threats. Of course, as we and many others have noted repeatedly, anything which threatens the prevailing criminal status quo will be merely labeled a “terrorist threat” in order to neutralize it. Just in case you aren’t yet convinced of how insane the folks at CTTSO are, “also on the CTTSO’s list of terrorism research topics were Android, Motorola, social media and virtual reality.” What has happened to this country...

Over the weekend, Bloomberg had an interesting piece about two of the main reasons why while stocks continue to rise to new all time highs, the expected selling in bonds - because in a normal world, what is good for stocks should be bad for bonds - isn't materializing, and instead earlier this morning the 10 Year tumbled to the lowest since February, while last week the 30 Year retraced 50% of its post-Taper Tantrum slide, or in short a complete disconnect between stocks and bonds.

Whocoulda seen that coming? A market that rips 1% low to high at the open as VIX's late-day collapse on Friday is smashed higher and then ripper lower results in... CBOE breaking!!

*CBOE SAYS SOME COMPLEX RATIO ORDERS MAY NOT EXECUTE (only HFT uses complex orders)
*CBOE: DUE TO C2 ISSUE, GOLG8 (Google Options) CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR TRADING

Welcome to the unrigged markets...

None other than status-quo-hugger Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger took aim at the scourge of HFT this morning; blasting high-frequency traders as "the functional equivalent of letting rats into a granary," and exclaims "it does the rest of civilization no good at all." Buffett reminds that HFT is "not a liquidity provider, " explaining that while it does produce volume, that is not the same as liquidity; and while the Oracle opines (incorrectly) that the small investor has never had it so good, Munger is quick to point out that the money HFT makes does not come from heaven and in fact it is the small investor who is hurt by the fact that large investors (who mostly act on small investors' behalf) are severely impacted. Even the usually abstinent Bill Gates remarks upon HFT as "adding no value.. because when the liquidity is needed, it isn't there." Munger sums it up: "I don't like it."

After months of ignoring events in Ukraine, HFT algos suddenly, if one for the time being, have re-discovered just where the former USSR country is on the map, and together with the latest economic disappointment out of China in the form of its official manufacturing PMI which missed expectations for the sixth month in a row, futures are oddly non-green at this moment now that talk of a Ukraine civil war is the new black (after two months of ignoring the elephant in the room... or rather bear in the room). Lighter volumes, courtesy of holidays in Japan and UK, have not helped the market breadth and stocks in Europe are broadly lower with the DAX (-1.33%) and CAC (-1.19%) weighed upon by risk off sentiment and market positioning for the eagerly anticipated ECB policy meeting especially after the EU cuts its Euro-Area 2014 inflation forecast from 1.0% to 0.8%. But what's bad for stocks continues to be good for equities, and moments ago the 10Y dropped to a paltry 2.57%, the lowest since February... and continuing to maul treasury shorts left and right.

Capture, corruption, irreparable harm--and little hope for change.   

As usual, there was the now traditional book-cooking going on at GM, which only managed to "beat" estimates thanks to the tried and true gimmick of channel stuffing. Indeed: after hitting an all time high of 815K cars parked at dealer lots last month, in April GM's channel stuffing rose to a fresh all time high of 826K, in effect suggesting that had it not been for the extra 11K parked but "sold" cars, GM sales would really have been up just 2.3% Y/Y, missing estimates, and down 13K from March. Hardly the picture of health the fudged data makes it out to be.

For today's Pop QEez: will the most recent FOMC statement due out in under two hours, be a new record of over 877 words, or will the Fed finally begin tapering, not only of its bond purchases, but of the confused message it is trying to send to HFT algos and whatever carbon-based traders are left?

Citadel's head of Execution Services (cough HFT cough) Jamil Nazarali, proclaimed Monday that small investors have never been so fortunate and said, with regard to Michael Lewis' now infamous book Flash Boys, "The most important thing that the market can do is stop... pointing fingers at everyone else." Citadel, who allegedly provides the NY Fed's VIX trading capabilities, are among the very largest high-frequency traders in the market (and the most levered), so one would surely expect that Citadel would like us all to stop pointing fingers at them. As Bloomberg reports, Nazarali said yesterday during a panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, "things are much better today than they were 10 to 15 years ago." For him, yeah.

While institutional investors and money managers have a very specific list of worries when it comes to their "financial concerns" such as Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), monthly/quarterly performance and redemption requests, losing top traders, what the year end bonus will be, order fill slippage, being frontrun by HFT algos, what the Fed chairwoman may say any given day, whether it is 3:30pm or if it is a Tuesday, ordinary Americans have a far simpler list of concerns. According to a recent Gallup poll, the one thing that has most Americans very/moderately worried is "whether or not they have enough money for retirement."

A few weeks ago, after Gartman got "scared" of the market and "got out of stocks" only to see a sharp reversal, Gartman turned "pleasantly bullish"... only to see stocks close the week red. Overnight, Gartman may have set the market direction once again with the following update: "We turned “pleasantly” bullish of shares several weeks ago when the S&P tested 1805-1810 and it has rushed higher since, although global shares have not followed the US higher with the same sense of urgency. Now, however, 1875-1885 has proven to be formidable resistance and our bullish enthusiasm has to be reduced once again." And sure enough, stocks surge. In HFT momentum chasing algo terms.

[J. Bradley Bennett]...compared high frequency trading to buying a first-class ticket on an airline...“Is there anything unfair about that? Doesn’t sound like it to me.”