NASDAQ

Last week it was the Nasdaq, today it was the Eurex Exchange, which broke down "due to technical issues" shortly after 2 am Eastern and which was offline for over an hour. Further keeping a lid on liquidity and upward momentum is today's UK market holiday which has resulted in a driftless move lower across European stocks, following a red close in the Nikkei225. It only means that the inevitable ramp up in the disconnected from all fundamentals and reality market will have to come only during US trading hours when the NY Fed trading desk steps up its POMO-aided levitation.

Succinctly summarizing the positive and negative news, data, and market events of the week...

Despite the best efforts of the efficient and idiotic things we call the US equity markets - which exhibited the kind of epic VIX smashfest into the close - the Dow was unable to be rescued from its 3rd red week in a row (the first in 9 months). The S&P closed above its 50DMA (at the highs of the week) with a late-day scramble (but Nasdaq ends the week +1.7%). So a very mixed bag for stocks and the USD (thanks to today's post-home-sales dumpfest) ends the week unchanged. The real story of the day (and week) though is precious metals and bonds. The 30Y bond's best week in a month and best day in 5 months wa snotable but perhaps more so, while the entire complex ripped lower in yield as the un-taper un-housing-recovery data hit, the flattening of the 5s30s spread is extreme. Gold and Silver spiked on the home-sales data ending the week up notably. The VIX-compression into the close ended at 14.00% for the biggest 2-day drop in 2 months.

Perhaps the most curious part from the just released and detailed Nasdaq post-mortem is the following, which appears to be an attempt to answer our remaining question from yesterday:  "At approximately 12:03 p.m., Eastern Time (ET), the UTP SIP ceased dissemination via all outbound UTP Quote channels. The UTP Trade feeds were not impacted by this outage and continued to remain operational. The UTP SIP has no evidence of an attempted intrusion into SIP systems or of an unusual burst of quotation or trading messages in connection with yesterday's events." No evidence, except for these (and many more) locked bids and asks and the associated Nasdaq trading radio silence.

One of the most published academics on gold in the world is Dr Brian Lucey of Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and he and another academic who has frequently covered the gold market, Dr Constantin Gurdgiev have just this week had an excellent research paper on gold published.

They have researched the gold market, along with Dr Cetin Ciner of the University of North Carolina and their paper,  ‘Hedges and safe havens: An examination of stocks, bonds, gold, oil and exchange rates’ finds that gold is a hedge against US dollar and British pound risk due to “its monetary asset role.”

"There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time," Ballmer said. "We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company's transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction."

• Lew warns Congress to strike debt ceiling deal (FT)
• Central-Bank Moves Blur the View (WSJ)
• Brazil, Indonesia launch measures to shore up their currencies (FT)
• More mainstream media reminded about Fukushima - Radioactive ground water under Fukushima nears sea (AP)
• Fukushima inspectors 'careless', Japan agency says, as nuclear crisis grows (Reuters)
• New York Banker Arrested on Rape Charges in East Hampton (NYT)
• This time they mean business, for real: CFTC Moves to Rein In High-Speed Traders (WSJ)
• Britain operates secret monitoring station in Middle East (Reuters)
• Moody’s considers downgrading top US banks (FT)
• China's Bo calls wife mad after she testifies against him (Reuters)
• JPMorgan Sub-New Normal Growth Seen Vexing Next Fed Chief (BBG)
• SEC calls for cooling-off period for more staff (Reuters)

It was a quiet overnight session, in which the Nikkei was catching up to USDJPY weakness from the past two days, while China dipped once more despite the NDRC's chief economist stating China may cut RRR or conduct more reverse repos in H2 to maintain stable credit as loan growth slows down (or in other words things go back to normal). In Europe ECB's Nowotny decided to undo some of Draghi's recent work when he said that "good economic news" removes the need for a rate cut which in turn pushed the EURUSD higher (and European exports lower), even as former Cyprus central bank Orphanides said the Euro crisis may flare up after the German elections. In the UK Q2 GDP came in slightly stronger than expected at 0.7% vs 0.6% Exp. letting the GBP outperform since a need for the BOE to ease, at least in the short run, is becoming less pertinent. In amusing news, Moody’s late yesterday put six largest U.S. banks on review as it considers the effect of evolving bank resolution policies under Dodd-Frank and international regulations. As such GS, JPM, MS and WFC may be cut.

Just over three hours ago, when discussing the NASDARK 3 hour trading halt, we asked: "what was it about Apple's locked Bid and/or Ask that caused the NASDAQ freak out, and was all the Tape C trouble at the NASDAQ purely a function of a locked order originating at NYSE Arca?" Moments ago, we got one half of the answer courtesy of the WSJ, which reports that "Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. executives internally on Thursday pointed to a "connectivity" problem with competing electronic exchange NYSE Arca as the trigger to technical issues that led to a three-hour halt in trading of Nasdaq-listed stocks, according to people familiar with the matter." Of course, Zero Hedge readers already knew that.

As we pointed out first, the Nasdaq outage can be directly and indirectly traced to action in Apple stock from mere minutes (when it suddenly dropped to under $500) to just over an hour before the Tape C halt was announced. And while the plunge below $500 may have been the proximal cause for the lock up that crippled the Nasdaq in a historic three hour episode of unprecedented humiliation, Nanex, which also uncovered the real quote-stuffing reason behine the May 2010 flash crash (and which the SEC tried to pin squarely on Waddell and Reed) has just disclosed that Nasdaq was already demonstrating explicit "glitches" in the trading of Apple well ahead of the 12:21 pm trading halt.

So what does Ben Bernanke do? According to these two perfectly spot-on Australians, "he makes statements... very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very careful ones..." And when he does there are safety procedures, "get under your desk, in a doorway... somewhere safe." But, they go on, "What would happen if companies improve on their own? Well that would be an even bigger disaster... because Ben might turn off the easing tap." It's funny, coz it's sadly true...

• NASDAQ SAYS WILL WORK WITH OTHER EXCHANGES ON `GLITCH'
• NASDAQ STATEMENT SAYS 'TECHNICAL ISSUES RESOLVED'
• NASDAQ SAYS TECHNICAL ISSUES WERE RESOLVED IN FIRST 3O MINUTES
• NASDAQ SAYS IT COORDINATED WITH OTHER EXCHANGES FOR REOPENING
• NASDAQ SAYS THAT PRICE QUOTES WEREN'T BEING DISSEMINATED BY SIP
• NASDAQ SAYS BALANCE OF TRADING WAS DAY WAS FINISHED IN NORMAL COURSE
• NASDAQ SAYS IT SUPPORTS ANY STEPS NEEDED TO ENHANCE PLATFORM

Well, that was fast.

Please standby...

Wondering why the ES is soaring? Because the NYSE just broke too.

• NASDAQ HAS DECLARED SELF HELP AGAINST NYSE ARCA (ARCA)
• NASDAQ DECLARES SELF HELP AGAINST NYSE ARCA AS/OF 15:26:42 E.T
• NYSE ARCA HAVING DIFFICULTY PROCESSING OUTBOUND TAPE C QUOTES

And BATS too:

• BATS HAS DECLARED SELF-HELP AGAINST ANOTHER MARKET CENTER
• BATS SAYS ROUTING TO NYSE ARCA HAS BEEN SUSPENDED AS OF 15:39

An absolute circus meant only to preserve confidence in a rigged, manipulated system based on incorrect electronic trades.