Forget that S&P 500 e-mini futures plunged to four-month lows at 1290; or Treasury yields crashed back to their record lows; or Gold and Silver's surge today; or WTI's plummet to almost a $90 handle; or Citi joining Morgan Stanley in the red year-to-date; or credit markets continuing into the red for the year; or IG9 10Y soaring further to 160bps - widest in 6 months; or VIX closing above 25% for the first time in 5 months (and decompressing to Europe's pain). Today was all about one thing - the disaster that was/is/and will be Facebook - between late openings, overwhelmed systems, a dump to the syndicate bid and almost 600mm shares traded with the syndicate just soaking it all up at $38.00 early and into the close. Is it any wonder that every other social media stock plunged and how do they expect to ever get another internet IPO off again (at anything but a massive discount). No matter what correlation trick was tried to juice markets today - for the tenth day-in-a-row markets saw a BTFD turn into a STFR. Not a pretty end to the ugliest week in six month for the S&P 500 as it nears its 200DMA into the close.
Facebook...
[4]
and (h/t Dennis Dick) for the following visual of the HFT tractor beam [5] in FB...
And the massive dominance of the syndicate bid (as who else could it have been) is clear in this chart of the volume profile for today...with Facebook's VWAP perfectly at $40 by the close...
[6]
Morgan Stanley = Zuckerpunched
FB needs to be Re-IPOed as the entire float is now held by MS again
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 18, 2012 [7]
And the S&P 500 e-mini futures SNAFU continues...
[8]
Utilities, Energy, and Materials are all now down YTD with Industrials close...
[9]
Gold had quite a week...
[10]
and longer-term stocks are catching up to risk-assets (proxied here by CONTEXT [11])...
[12]
And corporate bonds (dark red below) are now starting to get hit by the selling in the indices...
[13]
A quick run down of the day's events from Bloomberg TV:
Finally, this is what happens, Larry, when due to lack of real demand, you sell the second largest IPO in history to 25% retail, which has absolutely no idea how to trade a $100+ billion company and preserve the illusion of the ponz.
Charts: Bloomberg and Capital Context [11]