I wonder why LIFFE don't hand out copies of the article from the WSJ which reckons all these spoof trades are computer-generated and that the top 3 traders in the Euribor are now computer models.
You think 13,000 lot offers in Euribor are ridiculous,Short Sterling regularly has 50,000 lot bid/offers - it struggles to do that kind of volume in a whole days trading yet LIFFE can't work out that someone is manipulating the market - go figure!
Interesting that the rules of the Exchange say about false markets and misleading bids/offers however on the numerous times I've contacted LIFFE about this they always say "he's there to be hit."
The only ways to get the absurd size out of the markets:
1.Make the STIRS first in,first out like Bunds etc then the fake bid would lose it's advantage if it had to go to the back of the queue every time it decided to pull.
2.Charge a round-trip fee for non-completed orders if someone is only completing a tiny percentage of inputted orders - why go bid for 15,000 if you don't want to complete 15,000?
I had a black box last year that was placing orders on Liffe for less than a second and then pulling them. Liffe were in contact with me a load, and my point at the time was they are there to be hit if anyone wants them. They said they were having a large number of complaints from locals.