Can the price of E-Mini being manipulated by some big funds?

A

archer001

I know for some stock of futures, some one like hedge funds or large institution may hold a large portion of the open interest or volume. But for E-minis, I think the total open interest is too large, make it impossible for even big funds to control the price.

Hope to discuss this topic a little.
 
THEY DON'T NEED TO OWN THE BIGGEST POSITION, THEY HAVE COMPUTER SYSTEMS THAT KEEP FEEDING AND WITHDRAWING ORDERS FROM THE MARKET. BY DOING THIS THEY ARE TAKING A SHOT AT RIPPING STOP AND LIMIT ORDERS UP AND DOWN THE MARKET, THE ONLY PROBLEM NOW WITH THE ES IS THAT THE VOLUME IS SO HIGH IT TAKES LARGER ORDERS TO MAKE THE MARKET MOVE WHICH MEANS MORE RISK
 
you mean they really has some power to make the market move? or they just follow the trend of the price?

If they have some power over the price, but there maybe other large fund out there, so will it be risky for them to be got eaten up?

Quote from REDDEC:

THEY DON'T NEED TO OWN THE BIGGEST POSITION, THEY HAVE COMPUTER SYSTEMS THAT KEEP FEEDING AND WITHDRAWING ORDERS FROM THE MARKET. BY DOING THIS THEY ARE TAKING A SHOT AT RIPPING STOP AND LIMIT ORDERS UP AND DOWN THE MARKET, THE ONLY PROBLEM NOW WITH THE ES IS THAT THE VOLUME IS SO HIGH IT TAKES LARGER ORDERS TO MAKE THE MARKET MOVE WHICH MEANS MORE RISK
More...
 
Since this thread is about market manipulation and I have a bout of insomnia (it's 2:30 am) I'll kill some time by quoting from Michael Lewis' book "Liar's Poker". In it Lewis recounts the following episode of market manipulation that took place at Salomen Brothers as told to Lewis by one of the traders there. Lewie Ranieri was head of the mortgage bond trading at Salomen Bros. According to Lewis:
"...One trader remembers that 'Lewie would say he thought the market was going up, and buy a hundred million dollars worth of bonds. The market would start to go down. So Lewie would buy two billion more bonds, and of course, the market would then go up. After he had driven the market up, Lewie would turn to me and say, 'See, I told you it was going up.' "

Apparently if you can access a couple billion dollars you can influence the market price.
 
Yeah I do understand market manipulation is possible. However, my focus is a bit different: for a large market such as the eminis, can it be effectively manipulated? IMO, it is a mission impossible due to the following facts:
1. e-mini S&P 500 futures open interest for Oct 17 is 1549527, which corresponds to about 4 trillian dollars in the margin account. To effectively manipulate such a market, you need a lot lot of funds.
2. There may be other large fund out there. If more funds are trade against you, you loss.
3. The underlying asset is the S&P 500 index. If the underlying moves against you, you loss.

However, I also observed that the intra-day eminis price does not strictly goes along with the S&P 500, so I am also suspicious about my reasoning, and want somebody can discuss this with me.


Quote from piezoe:

Since this thread is about market manipulation and I have a bout of insomnia (it's 2:30 am) I'll kill some time by quoting from Michael Lewis' book "Liar's Poker". In it Lewis recounts the
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More...
 
Michael Lewis wrote that book, what 15, 20 years ago? The dollar values have increased tremendously since then.

When a large institution wants to dump stock, you better believe they'll be smashing those futures........
 
I guess we have another example of recent manipulation: Goldman Sachs changing of the weighting of gasoline futures in the GSCI.
 
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