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From Knight To Schrödinger Cat: Brokerage Scrambles Half-Alive, Half-Dead
Update via CNBC:
- CITADEL, KRR SAID NO LONGER TO BE LOOKING AT KNIGHT
- KNIGHT CAPITAL CLOSE TO FUNDING DEAL, CNBC'S KATE KELLY SAYS
- KNIGHT MAY GENERATE ABOUT $400 MLN FROM INVESTORS, KELLY SAYS
- GETCO, TD AMERITRADE LIKELY PART OF INVESTMENT GROUP: KELLY
Or not. We will know for sure in a few hours after TD and Getco know all they need to know about Knight's business and no longer need to give it false hope.
Knight Capital is scrambling: it has a few hours to convince any potential suitors that it is worth some $300 million more alive than having its carcass picked off at a cost of $0.01 over its debt (which itself will likely be materially impaired) in a Chapter 11 Stalking Horse sale. If the Sunday before the Lehman, and MF Global, bankruptcy filings is any indication, the third time will not be the charm for the company whose 1400 employees may have no place to call work at 9am tomorrow. Sadly, in a world in which entire countries and continents have taken on the patina of Schrödingerian felinism, constantly shifting between alive and dead states depending on who is looking, we would take the under on the probability that the firm's lawyers will not be visiting 1 Bowling Green at some point in the next 16 hours.
Knight Capital Group Inc. continued talks Sunday morning aimed at a deal that would allow the company to avert bankruptcy and open for business Monday morning, according to people familiar with the matter.
The discussions followed all-day meetings at Knight on Saturday as the hobbled brokerage sought to negotiate a transaction that would provide long-term funding, the people said. A software error at Knight last Wednesday caused millions of errant trades that the Jersey City, N.J.-based firm later said would cost it $440 million.
On Thursday, Knight arranged short-term funding that allowed it to operate on Friday. Knight needed the funding in place to be sure it could meet margin requirements, a necessary step in clearing trades at the heart of the firm's brokerage business.
Knight operates with two types of loans, short-term credit lines to fund daily trading and $300 million of syndicated loans for general corporate purposes, according to public filings. Several hedge funds have approached Knight about refinancing the syndicated loans if necessary, other people said.
It wasn't clear whether any such deal would happen, and the firm was also making bankruptcy preparations in case an agreement falls through.
The problem with Knight is that this is not a simple refinancing in a (Z/N)IRP environment: that could have been achieved in no time at all. In this case, it means providing additional capital to plug already incurred balance sheet losses, and shortfalls, that amount to more than the company's entire cash balance. That would mean not only cramming down everyone else on the balance sheet, but finding new unencumbered hard, money-good assets that can be pledged against new cash. Alas, very much like Europe, Knight just does not have these. Instead, anyone interested in the firm's existing assets will likely wait until fair value impairments wipe out its equity cap and impair its debt for a "fresh start", at which point any incremental debt will provide operation funding. Just like the Barclays take under of Lehman's North America brokerage even as the rest of the firm remained as a bad bank. In other words: a bankruptcy filing.
If this is the ritualistic sacrifice that has to be made in order to get someone within the regulatory staff to finally do something about the persistent threat that is HFT, so be it. All of this could have been avoided a long time ago ago if the SEC actually understood what it was doing and had any idea of how broken the market was, and if the SEC was not co-opted by the same HFT interests that have made amockery of stock trading.
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The road from 1% to the 99% is swift...
Too bad it wasn't Goldman Sachs.
On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
"people familiar with the matter"
Fuck off! Either put your name to it or expect us to treat it as what it is - propaganda...
I am guessing in another era, they might have been saved. But in the current climate, Wall Street fuckups are not being received with much sympathy.
This is the ONLY way possible for Goldman Sachs to get Knighted.
SAVED for letting a $10 million dollar a minute losing computer program run for 45 minutes?
I don't think you're reading all the cards right.
MFGlobal. PFG. Knight. That's a BIG chunk of futures trading consolidated in a short amount of time.
They're faking moves as they make moves.
this is what i think too.
Knight is an actual market maker...not some puny wannabe commodity scam. They have to match bids to asks...and once they're gone who's going to do that? Certainly not Goldman. They work under the "We bid you ask" method! Could see...probably WILL see a LOT of voltility in..."smaller"...names once Knight is decapitated...as appears to have been done.
The Morgue.
But..., I thought HFT helped to establish price discovery?
"Find me a dead cat."
-- Sean Connery, "Edward Pierce."
"The Great Train Robbery" ( 1979 )
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTMyNDM1NTgyOF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwND...
Futures trading consolidated, or futures trading destroyed?
I say "destroyed" because who in their right mind would keep trading futures given where the industry stands?
The thought crossed my mind with a couple of questions. If they don't have enough money is that going to affect the settlement of their bad trades? If so the nasty third party risk issue rears its head again. How come I've seen zilch on how this came about? I would have expected some mention of who got fired for the bad program. Matbe a headless corpse of some recent MIT grad progremmer found in the Hudson? This story has more to it than what we're hearing.
There are - as far as I can see - 2 reasons for a financial player to save the Dark Knight
a) Knight is able to stand on their own feet once it is saved
b) You will be next if Knight fails
Right on man. That "people familiar with the matter" stuff reeks of the typical Wall Skeet Jour-jour NewsCorp asshattery.
I've read the journal for quite a while now (proudly stopped my subscription a year ago after markets stopped behaving like markets should) and I don't think I've read a single article where real names were stated. Some people somewhere are always magically familiar with the matter! Well butter my ass and call it a biscuit - I'll be damned!
If your ass was to be buttered biscuit, would that make it a Cracker?
but in the days leading up to the point where it "drops to zero" the last things remaining will be Goldman Sachs, weapons makers, Monstinko, big pharma etc.
You and whose army?
Time to smash that Algo Box and bring down the fucking racks. After that hang the bastards
I don't think software was supposed to trade stuff. That's kind of... you know... a human activity. Like trading action figures or baseball cards or bushels of one crop for another, it's only elegant if there is some human emotion involved.
STUXNET = UST NEXT
Alpha Omega Bodhisattva Vs. The high priests of the Fiat religion, their false king and their beast.
Let us pray:
Technology will set us free, make our life simpler and richer, and raise evryone's standard of living.
Amen.
The same logic can be applied to guns. Guns don't kill people; although on one news channel the news anchor blurted that guns murdered x (I can't recall the stat they used) number of people last year. Not one gun was arrested for its crime. HFT is the algo's gun. HFTs murdered this company.
Extrapolating from all this, could HFT be construed an algo's second ammendment right and considering that the SEC hasn't made a move to repeal (it) the right to carry, concealed?
No CEO will be arrested as HFT "glitches" will be blamed.
Knight was a drive-by.
They were covering for the Bernank let down by driving markets higher. The FED owes them one. They'll be ok.
CHAPTER 11 BITCHEZ!!!!
Ahh crap! I invested 30000 virtual dollars in Investopedia stock market simulator on the stock. Buyed at the wrong time... Plus you can't short stocks below five dollars so I'm double-fucked, can't even hedge against my own folly...
I think we all learned this Always-Always rule in 4th grade arithmetic:
"Any quantity multiplied by ZERO equals ZERO."
.... except in politics.
If SOP is marking assets up, wouldn't the true value of Knights Capital be far less than what is on their books? Why would anyone bail them out given the environment we are in? Wouldn't that be throwing good money after bad? Just how much importance rests on name recognition, because I can't think of any other reason someone would come along in shining armor.
Codpiece on the Shining Knight's Armour is rusted shut.
Reckon Gamblers Anonymous will have had a few more attendees recently.
All too surreal. Deja Vu like. Like I've been living this dream over and over again. 4 years later.
Groundhog day continues.
Knight, PFG, MFG, Lehman, Bear Stearns - same pig, different colour lipstick!
Its all about liquidity to hide the insolvency. Here is the cascade:
1) Productive creation of capital = productive capitalism
2) Bank creation of credit = mortgage/re-mortgage fraud
3) Government creation of credit = TARP, LTRO, Twist, ELA, etc.
4) Destruction of corporations and pillage of their reserves = corporate caniballism
Once 1) was tapped out, 2) followed, then 3) and 4) simultaneously with 3) fading, so 4) has to become more dominant.
Any ides for 5), 6), 7)?
This is the progression to the endgame - no turning back now!
AIG, Freddie and Fannie pretty much should be in there as well.
I still do not understand how anything really big from Europe hasn't blown yet. Of course banks conitnue to be nationalized or bailed out otherwise.
Agreed.
Also:
"Gender Equality" = both partners have to work to earn one living wage between them?
Permanent State of Warfare = "productive destruction"
exactly; the whole gay thing is about slavery; like women in the workplace; destroy the family, import new slaves; make the ones here deviant fuck ups; but, everyone works, everyone buys. the ponzi shall continue. social engineering bitches; now suck my dick slave.
Northern Rock, Dexia, RBS, the Spanish bank recently.
I'm quite sure a massive bailout from somewhere, held RBS together for a bit longer just a dew weeks ago (computer glitch my arse), probably BoE.
Totally agree.
The haemorrhage was from Ulster Bank, the Northern Ireland subsidiary of RBS which is balls-deep in the Irish commercial property lending train-wreck.
The "system glitch" was neccesary in order to avoid an overt "bank holiday" while the screws were put to the BoE - "save us or we go down together".
Like in Point Break where Keanu Reeves holds the gun to Swayzee's (God rest his soul) head while they are both plummeting to earth - unforgettable!
Things don't blow because hard working people still get up every day and go to work and do today what they did yesterday. That keeps the world going around. It's when....for whatever reason (and there are dozens) that people are prevented or discouraged from going to that job that the world, or some part of it, stops. This too will come.
Not sure what number these would be but they are current or future ones:
- Devaluation of the currency, disguised by "relative value" to other currencies.
- Shadow inflation (bi-flation)
- Dilution of asset value (real estate, equities, pensions, treasuries, savings, etc.)
- Confiscation of assets via capture rules, withdrawal rules, punitive taxation, outright confiscation.
- Elimination of entitlements for retirees who have paid into them for 40-50 years and/or reneging on promised pension plans, retirement plans, etc.
The current and future target is the middle class; the confiscation of their assets, tangible and intangible, to feed the equities casino and the government sinkhole.
I'll guess that 5, 6, and 7, however they eventually get labeled, will include the direct involvement of lots and lots of lawyers. First we had homeowners fighting in court over robo-signing, now giant insurance companies suing over LIBOR rigging. Throw in a few rounds of control fraud litigation (MF Global, et al) and a few municipal bankruptcies (looking at you, Stockton, San Berdoo), and I can almost hear the meter clicking, at $750 per billable hour.
Yeah, how do those reptiles sleep at night and under which rock?
Don't know about 5) and 6); but it hardly matters since 7) will likely include Actual Cannibalism. We may even be at the bleeding edge of 7) now. Bath Salts my ass.
i thought all hands were on deck
all hands on DICK. You just needed a little vowel movement.
This is the 3rd medium sized brokerage to go bust in less than a year. Their plan is to keep vaporizing small and medium sized brokerages and consolidate control at the top (probably been said before but its blood apparent now). Desperate times call for desperate measures.
edit: Million Dollar Boner has posted what I've posted (albeit with more detail) a few posts above mine, didn't read the posts before posting today d'oh.
Sorry GH - my bad !:O(
lol, you are thinking what I have been thinking. All of my great thoughts have been put together from the ideas of others. :)
Yeah, I never had an original idea in my life :O)
5) Pension funds defaulting on obligations due to ZIRP
6) 401K and money markets frozen to maintain system liquidity
Then the sheeple stir from their sleep
Meh...I called my pension company as I'm approaching 50. They told me the rules changed and I can't get anything out until I'm 55.
Now taking bets on what happens when I call them, aged 54...
I expect by that time our fearless leaders in DC will have passed a Retirement Protection Act which funneled all of your money to the Federal government for your own protection . Once they have determined your need for your own money, it may be available in monthly payments on a schedule determined by them.
You better believe this is on the table. Ann Barnhardt did a nice job covering this topic today in fact.
Http://barnhardt.biz
Asked the WF "personal banker" what their MM was backed by.
"I've never been asked that."
Pure deer in the headlights moment.
speaking of pension funds:
O.C. retirement system $10 billion in the hole"The Orange County Employees Retirement System – which has assets valued at some $10 billion — also happens to be about $10 billion shy of what it needs to fulfill its pension promises to workers, according to a study of California’s largest independent pension systems by researchers at Stanford University."
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2012/03/09/stanford-o-c-retirement-syst...
Wave function collapses tomorrow at 0930. - Ned
we can now automate employees asleep at the switch
this afternoon niters are likely way hungover, looking for their balls
Broker: I know you're not standing on your front porch with a bag of money waiting for me to call you. But I'm not some 18-year-old selling a cure for AIDS. I'm 46 years old, I have 22 years market experience, I know this business. So pick up your skirt, grab your balls, and lets go make some money. BoilerRoom
ya think?
DO NOT OPEN THE BOX!!!
"This is not the box you are looking for"
I don't see any way a firm will step in front of this mess without the federal government partnering a deal. Look for plenty of partners in bankruptcy though.
where is Hank Paulson with his shotgun, when you need him
It's alive and dead at the same time.
Pretty shitty that those employees are now ex-employees (presumably with families & now looking for work) due to the "smartest guy in the room's" algo.
If it's at all like it is in the City of London, those employees were being paid more than similar employees in other industries without having any superior skills, except, maybe, the skill to keep their mouths shut about some of the funny business they saw around them.
I have no compassion for them, while the going was good they had no problem whoring themselves for the extra bucks, so now they suffer the downside of working in an industry which produces nothing, has no real assets and it's all about gambling.
A larger version of the "self checkout" stalls at your local grocery and hardware chain where the sheeple pay the same price to scan and bag their purchase for the computer, get no discount, and pay for the robot.
I guess it's asking too much for the rich to run their businesses with equity instead of massive debt.
Didn't you hear? Equity died a few years back.
Saw the obit in the HuffPost.
Small private funeral, family only, no flowers, donations to Home for Retired Bankers...
"Equity died a few years back."
It caught the last train for the coast ...
bye bye miss american pie, drove my chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry.
Let it rot. Proof that the algos can screw up big time.
We need more HFT and untested software.
Lets get this fucking disaster over with and quickly so we can start over.
Algos battling algos!
I would give a year of my life to see gs go broke. Id give five years to see all their employess arrested and hung---Third Reich style.
All their employees?
Whaat?...Timmah, Super Mario, Signor Monti et al...surely not?!?
...but, but...Timmah never worked for Goldman Sachs..../sarc off
Glitchez, bitchez.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48516238
I guess the conglomerate(s) doesn't/don't want to take it for pennies. Got me asking: why?
Keep jumping, fuckers.
“Not a single fair market exists in USDollar terms,” says James Willie in a diamond-rated must read on Market Oracle - Systemic Upheaval, Economic Recovery Vs Propaganda Reality Check.
“In pure Orwellian style, every single market has a US-based or London-based financial engineer at a control panel doing duty in price intervention. The Western defenders of the syndicate do not wish for the price structure to reflect the reality of physical shortage or the bounty of paper-based surplus, for the currencies to reflect true toxic value, and for the discovery price systems to reflect the raids of private accounts. The system is broken, and the pressure is building.”
As this pressure builds in the current financial markets distorted by the “extraordinary coils and loaded springs that hold the artificial price structure in place,” the victims of the “heat that is soon to be released in great volumes” - of a market removing its props to effect equilibrium - ”will be the USDollar, the USEconomy, the USTreasury Bond, and the price structures all held with great artificial forces,” says Willie. This "enthalpy" or "tendency for a system to seek its lowest potential energy," he says, goes "hand in hand with direction toward de-centralization of power."Writes Willie:
“The entire broken system revolves around a toxic USDollar and its fierce defense by dark powers. Their failure is evident in the 0% official interest rate managed by force by the USFed central bank, together with the bust of sovereign European bonds. The USTreasury Bond ultra-low rates serve as a mockery to the asset pricing system. The strain with wars and press support add pressures from deep within the system. The conflict and pressure will grow until the pressure spills over. When it does, a new global system will be in effect, based upon Gold…. Gold has often showed its value during times of upheaval and radical systemic change…”Willie lays out “in brief terms the many extreme conflicts and pressure points”…none of which “existed five or ten or fifteen years ago, yet all are somehow considered part of the ‘New Normal landscape’”:
EURO CENTRAL BANK VS MARGIN CALLS - EU TROIKA BANKERS VS PIIGS PEOPLE - LIBOR BIG BANKS VS LILLIPUTIAN VICTIMS -- US BANKS VS LONDON BANKS VS EURO BANKS - EASTERN TRADE PARTNERS VS USDEPT TREASURY -- USFED QE3 VS FINANCIAL MARKET BEGGERS -- JPM INTEREST RATE SWAPS VS USTBOND CAVE-IN -- JPM GOLD SHORT GAME VS COMEX RIG & GLD RAIDS -- USECONOMIC RECOVERY VS PROPAGANDA REALITY CHECK, and finally…
SYSTEMIC UPHEAVAL.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article35883.html
JIm Willie rocks! Hey, would anyone here be very surprised if we the people were tricked and coerced into bailing out knight in the interst of national security?
Living in a Tyranny.
Jackson is rolling and rolling.
potentially 1,400 more ZH readers tomorrow morning!
A so-called, Silver lining.
Good Knight !
Interesting? little tidbit, Knight Capital is listed in the Special Thanks credits to the iffy movie Wall Street 2.
rockem soakem robots.
We will be making real progress when Citi is back to $1.00 a share and is fed to the wolves.
I doubt it will happen but pray that it does - bottle of Bollinger in the fridge for when it does.
Oh, this requires an Irish poem:
On Ballsy Trading
Knight thought if it used a computer.
It's trades would be much more "astuter."
Alas, these poor nuts
End up like the mutts,
That get took to the vet for a "neuter."
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
alas these poor blokes
are the butt of all jokes
to be "fixed" where they weren't really broke
Isn't it passing strange that a company called 'Knight Capital' is desperately looking for a 'white knight?'
The fall out is hilarious.
Knight Capital Group, Inc., Knight Capitol Consultants
Follow the money trail straight to Washington, DC. Winks.
In the future, we'll refer these type of Wall Street companies as a floatation business rather than a Ponzi shell entity.
"floatation" as in - you keep flushing but it won't go away?
Deal finished 7 firms provide 400 million conv deal.....done!!
If this had been any other period in history heads would already have rolled. With ball games, the olympics and talent shows holding the sheeple's attention the looting and pillaging can continue until there is nothing more to steal.
No surprise here.
2676876
In response to: "Why would Ameritrade use them? Sam Waterson won't like this."
"Scottrade also using them. I think they are trying to get an inside track if it collapses. Also, TD Ameritrade is facing an antitrust inquiry, thus they might be trying to play good boy."
This is a typical corporation manuever, the white knight or in this case white knights. You get good publicity, expand your company and take their resources which also gives you more power. The goal is to become TBTF. Watching them cannibalize each other should be interesting over the next few years.
The first art of speculation is timing. HFTs are 60% of the market and control when they provide liquidity and tighten bid-ask spreads. At all other times, these major players are helping themselves, at the market’s expense. This is the definition of market manipulation. Retail and institutional investors are being screwed, royally by HFT, and now HFTs are screwing themselves.
Someone is about to get fleeced, and it appears it will be one or more of the brokerage houses that handle the retirement accounts of millions of Americans. Is it possible that this is the Black Swan event that will cause the US Government to step in to "save" retirement plans wgich has been theororized by many here and elsewhere? If TD Ameritrade has its sub accounts taken like MF Global did, it won't just be angry farmers who lost investments they were relying on, it will then be all the baby boomers who will be wondering what happened to their investments that they had socked away while they worked their meaningless jobs for the past 30 years.
if they owed the squid money they would get a bailout ala aig. too bad chumps.
I prefer the Bohmian interpretation.
It's toxic to any potential buyer due to legal issues alone!.. Bye Bye.
GETCO & Ameritrade made an offer...but BITEME will probable win.
Video from Reuters:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/video/video-knight-is-looking-for-a-white-knight/article4459613/
The latest article:
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2012/08/03/258151.htm
this vaporware's for you, kitty/ kitty
NRPS - Panama Red - YouTube
FOR SALE
1 Black Box, one careful owner, needs some TLC ( only slightly damaged)
Only to a good home.
Does one previously speculate what exactly your life can be if you are your best oakley sunglasses own personal management? Noone shoves people all over and also gives you purchases; noone for you to suck this up to for your improve in your wage; no-one who will fire people to be slightly comfortable when carrying out your job.
The question is, what is the economic/political agenda of the orgs propping up Knight? Did they also set them up? is this all a show/distraction for the kiddies? Do you know where your 2nd amendment rights are?