Growing evidence, number trails and a culture of greed support a connection between high frequency program trading and market manipulation and, by all appearances, the pumping up of stocks of troubled financial companies… – Ilene
This story began with simple reader inquiries concerning a stock market indicator called TRIN and their perceptions that TRIN was "broken". For the uninitiated, TRIN assesses the proportion of stock exchange volume that is going to advancing stocks to the volume attributable to declining issues. When TRIN is below 1.0, it means that volume is relatively concentrated in rising shares; above 1.0 means that volume is concentrated in declining stocks.
TRIN appeared to be broken because we were getting huge swings in its values from moment to moment in the market. It would swing wildly, sometimes going far above 1.0 and sometimes far below. I pointed out that, from a purely mathematical vantage point, this could only occur if a disproportionate share of NYSE volume was occurring in one or a handful of stocks.
Further inquiry revealed that this was, indeed, the case: I found that, not only were the trading volumes of such stocks as C, AIG, FNM, and FRE elevated, as noted the by Big Picture blog, but that their composite volumes (their volumes traded across all exchanges) exceeded that of all other NYSE stock trading! Indeed, I discovered that the 20-day TRIN was at its lowest level since 2000 because volume was highly concentrated in rising stocks. This was not just unusually heavy volume; it was unusually heavy to the buy side.
Since this volume was directional--all of these stocks had made spectacular percentage gains--and because the highly unusual activity was unique to troubled financial firms (not stable companies such as GS and JPM), I surmised that something might be afoot: a systematic attempt to bolster the shares of taxpayer supported companies that--for political reasons--could not return to the bailout well. Why such an attempt? Perhaps to reimburse the largest shareholder of the institutions and position these companies to raise capital on their own. They certainly weren’t going to raise their own capital as languishing two-dollar zombie…
Another day of no economic data left the markets looking for cues. The Nikkei closed with a fractional gain of 0.13%, and the EURO STOXX 50 slipped a fractional 0.10%. So today's focus was on couple of the more dovish Fed presidents, Bullard and Dudley. For an interesting visual of the Fed Presidents on the Dove-Hawk scale, see this graphic from Thomson Reuters. Bullard's presentation is available here. Dudley's speech is available here. But of course it's Bernanke's testimony to Congress tomorrow that will be the main event for Fed watchers. The S&P 500 traded in ...
The current Bank of Japan policy meeting is possibly the most important thing going on this week (even more so than Bernanke's comments perhaps). If, as is distinctly possible, they don’t do anything to reinforce the immediacy of the Kuroda QQE package, we could be looking at bond markets reacting in a most "unfavorable manner". The effect would be to reinforce the latest round of 'fear-on' bond selling – certainly over the short-term, and the damaged sentiment could impact stocks also.
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That's why the Bank of Japan policy meeting today/tomorrow will be so interesting. Can it nurture and sustain real growth? Deva...
General Electric (GE) was once revered as one of the bluest of all blue-chip companies in the world. During its glory days, GE was respected as an industrial conglomerate that manufactured some of the world’s best jet engines, locomotives, appliances and even the highly regarded General Electric light bulb. However, as best I can determine, the roots of General Electric’s ultimate demise were established in 1930 when the company, responding to the great depression, formed GE Finance in order to help their customers finance GE appliances over time.
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
U.S. equity futures traded lower in early pre-market trade following a weaker than expected GDP report from the eurozone for the first quarter. GDP growth rose to -0.2 percent on a quarterly basis from -0.6 percent but missed forecasts of a 0.1 percent contraction. Weakness was notably seen in Germany, France, and Italy in the report, with the annualized rate of growth for Germany dropping to -1.4 percent vs. 0.2 percent growth forecast.
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In other news around the markets:
The U.K. had fewer people claim unemployment benefits in April than expected, a positive sign for the labor market as the ...
So, what did the market want today? Nothing it appears. It traded on weak volume and had very little movement. This morning the market hated commodities especially silver, but by days end, the market liked silver, gold and even oil but not the dollar. Why?
Last week the economic reports were tough, with bad misses on more than one occasion. But the market tended to ignore the bad news, probably because money continues to pour into equities from money market funds, long term fixed income, and many struggling foreign economies. On Thursday, investors finally caved to even more bad news from Initial Jobless Claims and weak Housing Starts. Then on Friday, when Michigan Sentiment and Leading Indicators posted large positive surprises, the money came pouring back to generate qui...
VOYA - ING US, Inc. – Shares in ING Group’s U.S. retirement, investment and insurance business are up as much as 8.0% today to $26.98, the highest level since the company’s May 2nd IPO. ING US was rated new ‘buy’ at BTIG LLC with a 12-month target share price of $31.00 today. The stock has rallied nearly 40% over the IPO price of $19.50, and some options traders are positioning for the price of the underlying to extend gains during the second half of the year. November expiry options are the most ac...
Again, not much to add to this market in terms of analysis – nothing matters other than central banks. Last Wednesday/Thursday there were some 9 economic reports, 7 of which were disappointing or could be considered as such and all it got was one rare day down, and then new highs Friday. Markets are up 10 of the past 12 sessions and 17 of 21. Friday's move to 1666 was an exact 1000 point rally from March 2009's 666 bottom. Since this most recent leg of the move has been medium fast rather than a huge spike ala 1999, things are not necessarily overbought on the daily chart but we are seeing extremely rare action on the ...
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This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options.
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Reminder: Craigzooka is available to chat with Members regarding his virtual portfolio performance, comments are found below each post.
By Craigzooka
I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis. My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis. To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year. These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.
We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...
Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
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Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(
