NASDAQ

Truly ironic - anyone receiving a REAL business/finance education would be able to run these rudimentary calculations themselves, thereby invalidating the very diploma they are seeking

Presented with no comment - but come on!!!

• *NASDAQ: UTP SIP PROBING AN ISSUE WITH STALE DATA ON UQDF/UTDF

BATS has declared self-help against another market center, or is actively investigating an issue. AAPL, GOOG, etc. all dead...

lots of crossed quotes from EDGE at Nasdaq spins back up

— Eric Scott Hunsader (@nanexllc) January 3, 2013

Stunning Nanex charts below

2013 has begun just as 2012 progressed as Granite Construction just plunged 12.6% in under one second. As Nanex shows below, it is simply ludicrous. Of course, the algos (like every entity that comes close to 'failing' in the new normal) will never learn since, as usual, NASDAQ has decided to cancel the trades... *NASDAQ TO CANCEL SOME TRADES IN 'GVA' FROM 11:45-11:46ET AT/BELOW $32.72 11:45AM-11:46AM S.S.D.Y.

More exiting than Christmas!

• U.S. Family of Mao’s General Assimilates, Votes for Obama (Bloomberg)
• Iron ore prices hit eight-month high (FT)... four months after plunging and crushing iron ore miners
• Obama seeks 60 Senate votes for cliff deal (MarketWatch)
• Need. Moar. InfinitQEeee: Japan PM adviser urges unlimited BOJ easing, higher price goal (Reuters)
• Yen Touches 16-Month Low Versus Euro Before Japan CPI (BBG)
• China consumers driving economic rebound (Reuters) - ot just year end window dressing to accompany the new Politburo
• Rajaratnam agrees to pay $1.5 million disgorgement in SEC case (Reuters)
• France should review 2013 deficit target with EU partners (Reuters)
• Monti-led poll alliance takes shape (FT)
• Bersani wants growth-oriented Europe (FT)

Despite the fact that Europe was closed today, the algos were not to be put off as the day broke beautifully into two pieces with a linear sell-off across assets into 1130ET and then a de-correlated nothing-burger all afternoon amid volumes lower than a CNBC anchor's IQ. Makes perfect sense right? The market dribbled higher off the lows into the close and then we got a little discombobulated in the last few minutes as Boehner rumors hit and ETFs (notably bonds - TLT) went a little jiggy. VIX remains bid (as we have been so clear to explain why) and while stocks weakened today, risk-assets in general were just not moving much - thanks generally to Oil's 2.75% gain offsetting Treasuries modest risk-off view. HYG (the high-yield bond ETF) went vertical into the close (following TLT's lead) but between negligible volumes and desparate attempts to pull any and every lever (EUR early and HYG late) to get things going, VIX's message is stay hedged into the new year (at 5-month highs with biggest 5-day jump in 7 months). S&P 500 futures closed the day-session at the low-end of the channel post last week's flash crash.

Presenting Dave Collum's now ubiquitous and all-encompassing annual review of markets and much, much more. From Baptists, Bankers, and Bootleggers to Capitalism, Corporate Debt, Government Corruption, and the Constitution, Dave provides a one-stop-shop summary of everything relevant this year (and how it will affect next year and beyond).

It may not be apparent immediately, but in the aftermath of last night's epic collapse in fiscal cliff negotiations, which incidentally was perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain and who experienced last summer's debt ceiling fiasco, which sadly excludes all paid political and financial - including sellside - commentators, all of whom expected a prompt resolution to this polarized issue as recently as a week ago, there is major behind the scenes panic. Because while banks would write profuse, long-winded essays to explain the logic and rationality of the "deal", now that they are all faced with adjusting their narrative the best they can come up with are two sentence fragments such as this one from Citi's Steven Englander "Problem is that it is the right wing of the Republican Party that wouldn’t give Boehner their support, making it less likely that he could win broad support among Republicans for a compromise with the White House. Also he will have to spend next couple of days negotiating with both his own party and the Democrats without knowing how much he can deliver." The answer: nothing at all. In fact as Scott Rigell said “I’m not sure the people who have been up here 20 or 30 years really understand what the next iteration of this process is”.  He is speaking for pretty much everyone else who has now been made a total fool by the Black Swan that is Congress. As a reminder a 3 month delay resolution assures a US recession, and a ~20% or so minimum correction in the stock market, which has been priced for absolute perfection for months, and which will once again have to be used by Wall Street as a means to get a consensus out of DC. Just as we predicted over a month ago. Finally while we may have avoided the Mayan apocalypse, we do have a quad witching and a NASDAQ rebalance to look forward to. Enjoy!

For anyone watching the last hour or two of today's market, there was plenty to entertain. VXX (the implied vol ETF) collapsed in a haze of glory dragging stocks to the highs of the day with financials seeing their best day in three months. Treasury yields, Gold, and Stocks have all recoupled from the election and perhaps that is what this bond weakness is related to (as for example LQD fell to 3 month lows today, while HYG remains close to record highs). Stocks closed at Thursday's highs amid heavy and large size trades - the vertical rampathon (or inverse Baumgartnering) suggests a quiet market desparate to auction to stops. The USD ended unch, as did Gold while 30Y added 8bps as testicular fortitude appeared under pressure today. Perhaps Citi should downgrade AAPL every day? Today's #Teppergasm (h/t @gubbmintcheese) saw the NASDAQ back to unchanged for December and Citi up a measly 13.3%.