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Here Is Today's 482 Millisecond NFP Leak, The Subsequent Gold Slam And Trading Halts In Treasurys And ES
On Monday we brought to you proof of a 15 millisecond frontrunning of the Mfg ISM number by what turned out to be HFT clients of Reuters which admitted subsequently it had "inadvertently" leaked the number to select clients. However, that was child's play compared to the absolute market farce that happened today which we can visualize courtesy of Nanex, and which impacted gold, ES, and Treasury Futures altogether.
In sequential order: 62 milliseconds before the NFP number a massive dump of gold took place in what can merely be described as yet another of the infamous gold take downs we know so well which however take place just around the time of the London fixing. That it happened right before the NFP number is either an indication of an early NFP data leak reaching "some" HFT traders, or merely an attempt to set the "mood" for further selling by someone who decided that the NFP print would be negative for gold no matter what it was...
August 2013 Gold Futures trades and quote spread.
However, manipulated gold markets are nothing new, and frankly we would have been surprised if they did not happen.
What was more amusing was the action after the NFP release in both the eMini and the T-Bond futures, all of which had to be halted for a whopping 5 seconds until the algos, selling everything at first, got the memo out that good news today was in fact good news, and promptly ramped risk to the moon. Either that, or someone called in a code Red, made it so all selling was literally prohibited, and with the only path of no resistance up, resulted in today's epic melt up on what was initially a very bearish kneejerk response to the NFP print.
First: September 2013 T-Bond Futures trades and quote spread. The deluge of selling hits 482 milliseconds before the NFP release, leading to a 5 second circuit breaker and halting the OTR future contract of the world's largest bond market. Abe would be proud.
Meanwhile in equities, all liquidity disappeared. All of it.
June 2013 ES Futures (eMini) trades and quote spread: the first appearance of the trading halt:
Zoomed in: no trades.
But despite the trading circuit breaker, quotes flooded the system in the 5 second period in which trading was halted:
And zoomed in some more: trades, or lack thereof:
And quotes.
* * *
Thank you Central Planners: not even in 1955 Stalingrad did they manage to break the capital markets (assuming they ever had one) as effectively as you have done.
And now, we look forward to Sunday night in Japan, where we anticipate at least 1-2 bond trading halts on what is sure to be an upside explosion in the Nikkei225, if only until the selloff resumes once again as central banks are increasingly more and more cornered with a dilemma of either breaking the bond market, or stocks.
Finally, if this millisecond response is a glimpse of what happens when not even all the central banks (because now it is a coordinated effort) can hold the market together, then we wish all the best to those who will "sell ahead" of everyone else when the time to sell comes.
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Just bought five rolls of walking liberty halves at a discount...
i picked up yet another 100oz Ag for only 2500 bennybux!
thanks crime syndicate!
Anyone dumb enough to leave an order in with 1 second to what is sure to be a market moving event deserves to lose.
In terms of the markets we have no more control of "reality" or funamentals than putting on our 3-d glasses at the latest Star Trek movie. We behave a sheep and are therefore predictable as such. We see ourselves very much as individuals but act as an organism, reacting to various stimuli put before us. The markets are behaving in the ways that the "market makers" determine and until we can pry ourselves away from the very stimuli we seem so addicted to, we ultimately are helpless to control our destiny. We say this insanity cannot continue, but if we are the insane ones, is that still true? Is this the reality that we have created for ourselves, regardless of how insane it appears?
"if we are the insane ones" then war is peace, ignorance is strength, and of course, freedom is slavery.
Am I hallucinating or is this being discussed on CNBC now? I don't (ever) have the sound on so I don't know what they're jawing about but I saw the NANEX pic on the tee vee and was mildly surprised..
<3 Nanex
Squeeky.....
Squeeky....???
Where are you Squeeky....?????
I know your there somewhere...!!!!!
Did the NFP DEFINITELY come out at 0830.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ?
I think we should force the HFT's to use 1970 Honeywell mainframes with COBOL programming and data punched cards. That might slow them down enough so that a real human might be able to get in the game.