Gotta love ZERO RISK in the SP500 = $$$

der_kommissar said:
I didn't see the ETF's, I was trying to figure out what to do with my existing positions (mostly options), but I was a bit freaked because of how the quotes were literally all over the place and the marks on the positions were moving everywhere...

The "piling on" is exactly how I see it..which is why when I watch these markets, I can't help but remember the old days when I could figure out where humans would probably let up, sell into, buy into, all that old stuff that is becoming irrelevant..Nowadays, the markets (and the bots) just relentlessly buy and sell in one direction, creating "v's" everywhere (with minimal liquidity)...
More...

Anyone who wants so see an excercise in total market malfunction take a look at the following ETF's

PFM
AOR
XPH
DON

I could give you a list of two dozen like this, keep in mind ALL THESE ETF's actually traded to these levels with lots of volume, these arent dud prints on a chart, they were being halted every two seconds, so like an idiot i didnt put my whole account into it times 3, still did good on them though. It was literally free money, but i just couldnt believe my eyes, i thought they HAD to be busted.

mondayetf.png
 
There was a snippet in one of the papers about some Financial Advisor in Michigan who put in stop losses for all of his clients portfolios 15% beneath the market (ETF's), and all of his clients were stopped out (presumably at the prices on those charts above)...It looks like they wiped out probably 2+ years of gains and then rallied to basically unchanged on the week...

I'm not privy to how all of those decisions are made to break trades, but it does seem that if ma and pa are on the other side of that trade, then it stands...probably quite a few of these Financial Advisors are fielding alot of embarrassing questions this week.
 
Yeah i agree, even though my trades stood, and i was happy, i thought guaranteed they should be busted, we are talking about ETF's trading down 30-40% when none of the underlying product was even down close to that.......

Feel sorry for the poor bastards who took a bath on monday, but you can sure as hell guarantee it wasnt the institutions or they would have busted them forsure, of all the ones me and a couple people went in on not a single one of them busted. Once again ma and pa get the screw job.

der_kommissar said:
There was a snippet in one of the papers about some Financial Advisor in Michigan who put in stop losses for all of his clients portfolios 15% beneath the market (ETF's), and all of his clients were stopped out (presumably at the prices on those charts above)...It looks like they wiped out probably 2+ years of gains and then rallied to basically unchanged on the week...

I'm not privy to how all of those decisions are made to break trades, but it does seem that if ma and pa are on the other side of that trade, then it stands...probably quite a few of these Financial Advisors are fielding alot of embarrassing questions this week.
More...
 
Max E. Pad said:
Yeah i agree, even though my trades stood, and i was happy, i thought guaranteed they should be busted, we are talking about ETF's trading down 30-40% when none of the underlying product was even down close to that.......

Feel sorry for the poor bastards who took a bath on monday, but you can sure as hell guarantee it wasnt the institutions or they would have busted them forsure, of all the ones me and a couple people went in on not a single one of them busted. Once again ma and pa get the screw job.
More...

That's right...and all the popular retail brokerages were off-line...so ma and pa couldn't buy down there, but they got liquidated...I suspect if/when this thing finally does break that this will become even more commonplace (if they do prolong a real correction, it just ensures that it will be even more illiquid the next trip down).
 
der_kommissar said:
(if they do prolong a real correction, it just ensures that it will be even more illiquid the next trip down).
More...


Oh yeah, market makers no longer serve the function of absorbing voltile moves, with highfrequency trading they are the ones front running volatile moves, and its only going to get worse, we saw how much they were willing to stand in and absorb volatility on monday, and it was zero, they didnt do shit, maybe they started buying when everything had puked and they knew there was a profit, but they sure as hell werent doing their jobs trying to create a market.

It was just pure algos piling on top of panick, and everyone pulling.
 
der_kommissar said:
There is...not just VIX, but VXN and RVX as well...I was just looking at other time periods and so far it looks similar to late summer into fall of 2011...the Oct 2014 break (which is what this recovery this week is bringing back into memory) the vol's imploded quite rapidly...not to mention the price structure was contained in various channels/trendlines, etc (granted it might not mean a whole lot)...this rally back to resistance still seems to have alot of risk premium in those far otm puts...granted the whole theory about announcing QE4 and trapping the bears is sitting in the back of my mind.
More...

I really don't think QE4 is in the cards unless we get an economic meltdown. Perhaps, I should read the news sources over the weekend.
 
If i had to go out on a limb....... What i think happened on monday is some bigwig, or some big fund decided that in September the music was going to stop the second the Fed started raising interest rates, this person or fund actually bought into the notion that rates are going up in september, but suddenly, he proved to all of us that there is not going to be a market for anyone when/if the music actually does stop.

 
Last edited:
Max E. Pad said:
If i had to go out on a limb....... What i think happened on monday is some bigwig, or some big fund decided that in September the music was going to stop the second the Fed started raising interest rates, this person or fund actually bought into the notion that rates are going up in september, but suddenly, he proved to all of us that there is not going to be a market for anyone when/if the music actually does stop.
More...

And just think of how absurd the whole ordeal has become..."the prospect" of a 25 bps rise and the markets opened limit down and etf's were essentially "no bid"...In 2007, when the market started to come off rates had moved from maybe 1.00%-5.00% and real estate imploded and then the market started its thing...At least back then they had all that room down to the zero bound, now we've got one of those asshats talking about NIRP as a "solution" to slowing growth and shaky market.
 
der_kommissar said:
That's right...and all the popular retail brokerages were off-line...so ma and pa couldn't buy down there, but they got liquidated...I suspect if/when this thing finally does break that this will become even more commonplace (if they do prolong a real correction, it just ensures that it will be even more illiquid the next trip down).
More...


That's right all or most online brokers were slow or not even up and running. Ameritrade was completely down ....scottrade grinded to a halt. My other account I was able to trade.from but the spreads were so wide on the etfs I was selling and moving so.quick it was nearly impossible to put my sell order in....I.sold.everything with limit orders that morning. Anyway I really don't believe the markets are done going down. I would anticipate another insane volatile day like last Monday soon....I was reading that this move this past week was record breaking. And to think the crisis isn't even here yet...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top