Nanosecond HFT Algos could actually Kill the Market
The Trader has been covering the HFT space for a while. Some more on the subject of how the HFT Algos could make the market go haywire. From Wired Science:
The afternoon of May 6, 2010 was among the strangest in economic history. Starting at 2:42 p.m. EDT, the Dow Jones stock index fell 600 points in just 6 minutes. Its nadir represented the deepest single-day decline in that market’s 114-year history. By 3:07 p.m., the index had rebounded. The “flash crash,” as it came to be known, was big, unexpected and scary — and a new study says flash events actually happen routinely, at speeds so fast they don’t register on regular market records, with potentially troubling consequences for market stability.
The analysis involved five years of stock market trading data gathered between 2006 and 2011 and sorted in fine-grained, millisecond-by-millisecond detail. Below the 950-millisecond level, where computerized trading occurs so quickly that human traders can’t even react, no fewer than 18,520 crashes and spikes occurred. The study’s authors call those events “financial black swans,” though they’re so common that the black swan label probably doesn’t fit anymore. (Full reading here).
Greek endgame-default date already set?
According to the Slog, there is a set timetable for the Greek default. Whether true or not is hard to say, but “somebody” must surely know.
A written document giving firm dates and detailed actions for a planned Greek default has been in the possession of two top Wall Street bank currency trading bosses since the second week in January. The Slog has separate but corroborative sources affirming the existence of the document, and a conviction among senior bank staff that – at least at the time – the plan represented “a timetable, not a contingency”. The plan gives a firm date of March 23rd for default to be announced after the close of business.
Senior bankers on Wall Street have been given detailed documentation setting out a timetable to Greek default, including firm dates and technical ‘orders’ about last use of the euro as a currency there.
The Greek Experiment
Hudson on the Greek experiment, austerity and banksters, via Real News.
In Greece, the financial elites of Europe have gotten agreement from the Greek government to another round of what some people are calling savage austerity measures, for example, lowering the minimum wage by 22 percent, a new round of privatizations, and cuts to pensions and many other social programs. This is, I guess, an example of banks and a banking technocrat that now leads the Greek government directly intervening, calling government policy. So what does this tell us here in the U.S., Canada, and other countries that are watching this?
We are all equal, but some are more equal than others
Nothing new actually, but interesting reading . From Global Economic Intersection on our latest hero, Super Mario.
4. Do you have any business or financial holdings or any other commitments which might conflict you with your prospective duties, and are there any other relevant personal or other factors that need to be taken account of by the Parliament when considering your nomination?
[M. Graghi:] No.
Full reading here.
Divergences across asset markets
The growing divergences between the equity and the credit and vol markets picked up by CNBC. Did we start the reversal yesterday?
Poor America-what’s going on in the US?
From BBC Panaroma; With one and a half million (1.5 million) American children now homeless, reporter Hilary Andersson meets the school pupils who go hungry in the richest country on Earth. From those living in the storm drains under Las Vegas to the tent cities now springing up around the United States, P a n o r a m a finds out how the poor are surviving in America and asks whatever happened to the supposed ‘government’ and the Real People in charge – those who you ‘don’t see’ pulling on the strings; and their vision and welfare for the country.
Could this be a form of ‘Social cleansing’ without the need of war or disease inflicted by the orchestrators – simply a controlled bout of poverty? Or is this the forced education that only condition children to know only a certain amount of knowledge that can only ever see them progress in working environments such as confined offices within the ‘Human Zoo’ qualities within the desperately overcrowded cities.
Espana-everything under the sun
Things are heating up in Spain. 5 yr CDS prices are climbing higher today, and don’t be surprised to see new highs as the Greek mess starts spreading to the Iberian peninsula. There has been some reporting in non mainstream media of Spain engaged in creative accounting over the past days. If true or not, we will see. For now, according to EL Pais, Spain’s social security chief, is apparently not a doctor, although his CV said so for a decade. With this mentality, we ask ourselves, how will they fix the Spanish collapsing Economy?
Hopefully they will act differently to Don Quijote and his imaginary world. From El Pais below.
Paulson’s Holdings
There has been a lot of talk regarding Paulson’s badly timed trades. The ex star on the horizon is fading quickly. Video below;
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