Comments on: Consumer Confidence Rebounds: Bullish Or Bearish?

by: Babak

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:47:31 +0000

Paul, the market is the market. Yes the ramp up was very strange but nothing novel really. I do expect us to head lower before putting in a definitive bottom but I think we’ll maintain the previous low in March.

by: Paul

Sat, 30 May 2009 13:44:57 +0000

Babak, if this Unnatural Market action continues and it has and I think it’s very obvious from 5/29 close, the market is controlled until these people change course and nothing will work.

by: Paul

Sat, 30 May 2009 04:44:52 +0000

Babak, if it is true a dealer spikes the market to close 920, there could be a set up for a breakout play to 940 plus. This dealer will make a lot of money and this cycle can be repeated.

by: Paul

Sat, 30 May 2009 03:57:23 +0000

Babak, I found what I was looking fo and share it with you. The move was violent and the SPX futures market, the most liquid market in the world, too got overwhelmed. Though the closing print on the SPX (cash) was 919.14, the ES futures traded all the way up to 927.75 at 4:00PM. The chatter is that there was an order to purchase 2500 contracts of the SPX futures at close entered by a single dealer (JP Morgan according to some). This corresponds to a notional value of $575 Million dollars. This resulted in all the offers to sell between 914 and 927 to be hit. This also triggered a lot of stop orders to buy, adding to the stampede. Unnatural Market Action: Window Dressing or Something More? There is some speculation that there was an effort to prop up the market into the close to ensure a finish close to the high levels of the month. It is very odd for a major dealer to wait till the close to enter such a large order especially on a Friday which happened to be the last trading day of the month. Liquidity tends to be less near the close on Friday as many traders and desk square out their positions before the weekend.
We are living in an era of significant government intervention in the financial markets. What some call market intervention for the greater good, others call market manipulation. It is not clear what happened today, but it was certainly not normal.

by: Paul

Sat, 30 May 2009 02:13:17 +0000

Babak, who is buying in this new bull market and pushing S&P low volume up 12 points within 15 minutes to close? Another similar push will go above 930 and a breakout? It looks similarly pretty easy to go to 1,000 in 6 more days?

by: Paul

Fri, 29 May 2009 03:06:04 +0000

Babak, are you suggesting this market will be like 2003, no real pullback as Expectations - Presenst is positive? I am preoccupied if a 5% correction has been enough for this new “bull” market to go higher from here? This new “bull” feels like having an invisible hand.