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Was This The Selloff Catalyst: $10+ Billion BlueCrest Capital Unwinding Positions, Fires PMs
Yesterday's plunge in stocks (and credit markets) was pinned on several catalysts from Russia to Fed speak, but the 'liquidations' explanation appeared to make most sense and now we have a candidate for the culprit. As The Wall Street Journal reports, $10.6 billion BlueCrest Capital Management LLP, one of Europe's largest hedge-funds (and best known for its credit market expertise), laid off several stock traders in the U.S. Thursday and began liquidating their investments, according to people familiar with the matter, not long after it aggressively expanded into equities.
Here is a snapshot of BlueCrest's most recent exposure and AUM via HSBC:
BlueCrest Capital Management LLP, one of Europe's largest hedge-fund firms, laid off several stock traders in the U.S. Thursday and began liquidating their investments, according to people familiar with the matter, not long after it aggressively expanded into equities.
Four of 18 U.S. portfolio managers at BlueCrest's U.S. stock hedge fund were laid off Thursday, along with their analysts, one of the people said. Jonathan Larkin, the firm's head of U.S. equities and a former executive at Millennium Management LLC, resigned, the people said.
The New York traders invested in sectors including health care, telecom, media and technology.
BlueCrest on Friday cited performance issues for the shake-up. "We remain very focused on performance and unfortunately we've had to make some changes in the U.S. team," said BlueCrest Chief Financial Officer Andrew Dodd in a statement. "However, our overall strategy remains very firmly in place and we will continue to grow the team and build the fund."
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When one fund's liquidation of a part of their portfolio can drop the Nasdaq by 2%, it should be clear to everyone (including Janet and here friends at The Eccles Building) that the stock market 'stability' is anything but "contained."
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gpro down early...wonder if the bluecrest theory was right
— Jamie Lissette (@jamielissette) September 26, 2014
Lots of desk chatter this morning that BlueCrest was short GPRO (and covered), which would explain this...
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Someone needs to yell FIRE! in this crowded theatre. Ah, hell, I'll do it myself!
I'm totally going to fat finger a trade on my terminal at the open..
.....for the stability of the fraud, I mean fund
You have to remember their battlecry " Its not my fault! "
Were are the "algo's" to provide liquidity and so for stabilize the markets ?
They provide liquidity on the way up and suck it out on the way down.
At this point, I'm more interested in finding some yellen p0rn on the internet.
bread and circuses until something breaks. I blew my "the world is ending omg omg omg omg" load a while back. Still waiting for the end. I know it's coming, but I'm just bored as hell waiting for it.
Economic stability: buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people that don’t matter.
As much as possible, as often as possible...
Whew. That's a relief. At least we now have a scapegoat. Back to BTFD. All is well.
"When one fund's liquidation of part of their portfolio can drop the Nasdaq by 2%, it should be clear to everyone (including Janet and here friends at The Eccles Building) that the stock market 'stability' is anything but "contained.""
Yeah, IF that's what did it.
Is this the new version of "rogue traders"?
And where's the HFT guys who are supplying "liquidity" to the markets in large amounts?
Left unreported were the colors of the horses ridden by four portfolio managers.
"Eric Scott Hunsader @nanexllc 3h
Dear Europe, Did you know that ~30% of US Stock quotes are inaccessible to you (already expired)"
And even more problems for the world when a lot of the quotes have expired before you can trade on them
Back in 2006 I had a client who had AAA rated bonds. My client asked me to sell them in order to raise some cash. At the time the market was touching the old 2000 highs and everything seemed to be running smoothly. Well, the bonds were trading at a premium and I put an order to sell. When I checked back later and the bonds never sold. I thought it to be odd, but I just waited. I came in the next day and they still had not sold, I went into another brokers office and shared this info with him, and I knew something was not right. Well the client needed the money so we dropped our ask well below the bid price and nothing. We ended up selling the bonds for 80 cents on the dollar even though they were "trading"at a premium. Clients read their statements and they believe they have rising value, when in truth it's all a lie. I share this info because I believe it's important for everybody to know that when you think the time comes to sell there will be no bid. This is why I hold the belief when they pull the rug this "market"will vaporize before our eyes.
For those who play in this cesspool, you had better take profits as you go and use them to buy some shiny insurance.
That's the way I play it. I really don't care where silver and gold are now. For all I care they could drop another 50%, I get more for my fiat.
Someday this war is going to end.....
....not until the "suckers" start starving.
+1 Dr.
It's not the price that matters, but the ounces :)
Whenever this shitshow capituates it will be epic.
Nothing is as it seems in the "financial" sector. It has been this way since 1971 when the final connection between this sector and the real world was severed. But yes, most don't realize this. The only leverage these useless paper-pushers have is debt, and even that will fail them shortly. Gee, everyone is going to have to actually work for a living again, fucking bring it.
You better not look like one of those guys in 71 or ass is grass.
so my levered dollar/yen longs wont be worth anything??
Very important article and a reminder of just how illiquid markets can be,
We need MOAR.............. something! Anything!
Help us Janet, you're our only hope.
- The 0.001%
Can you say Black Swan? lol...
i was watching GPRO yesterday soar past a $10 billion market cap for in essence, cameras
Exactly. The chimps on CNBC and Bloomberg will say that GPRO has unlimited future potential. But we all know that success brings competition and GPRO will loose either market share or margin or both in the future.
Already in progress.
Check out Polaroids new CubeTM
A more versatile platform for $100 bucks.
Competition rocks.
I'm not a fan of GPRO the stock, but I love their cameras for recording police and the like.
What a bunch of billshit. So I am to believe that because some fund which was underperforming though up 11% YTD laid off 4 traders and an analist because they were short GPRO. This causes what a trillion in market losses yesterday.
With a market this overbought & with this little volume, it doesn't take much to get the herd moving. The point isn't that they were responsible for the numbers, but that they got it started. Everybody else just followed.
October. Overbought. QE almost dead. Won't take much to spook this market.
Why "liquidate" your holdings like the dumbshits at the FED when they manipulate gold futures by selling 10,000 contracts at the market, instead of taking a few days or a week to unwind things without ruffling market feathers? And these are the "pros" managing your money; WTF.
www.traderzoo.mobi
B.S if you ask me. When a fund liquidates they don't just dump the lot on the market, unlike the Fed dumping precious metals. For any rationale fund, you would do a gradual liquidation to avoid price collapse.
That is gradual to them!
What was their leverage, cause 10.6B defo is not much compared to the overall market...though most of the overall market are vapor quotes.
*Edit* Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1411737166645&chddm=24633&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC&cmptdms=0&q=NASDAQ:GPRO&ntsp=1&ei=FGYlVOChFMnLqQGjzIGgDg
So let it begin! Huge market distortions to equalize.
I don't want to be cynical, but since my first visit on this site I've been reading "stocks gonna crash, gold to $50.000". Untill now I only lost money believing this.. Not saying it will not happen.. but it is very hard to predict.. Maybe it will never happen, maybe they got more control over situation then we give cedit for...?
skynet changed everything.
the matrix is computers.
http://www.zerohedge.com/help/disclaimer
the key, in my opinion is to just ride these rigged markets up as much as possible and make sure you have enoguh gun powder to capitalize when it goes down. not if, WHEN.