Reply #11: The sharks are in the water.....and you taste good. [View All]

[Dr.Phool]

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/authors/2-Karl-Denninger


What Was THAT? (Friday Market Close)

Friday's close was "interesting", to put it mildly.

Here's a chart of Friday's price action in the /ES, the S&P 500 "Electronic" Futures:




Notice the huge volume spike (the blue underlay) on the chart at the close.

There were 146,083 contracts traded in that one-minute period between 14:59 and 15:00 (Central); the next minute, when the real dislocation hit, traded 91,774 - after the cash market bell had rung.

The closing bell is usually busy. But this sort of volume is absolutely unheard of. To put it in perspective yesterday the same time recorded 26,540 contracts, and 36,642 the minute after.

Volume was light all day, as is somewhat common in the summer on a Friday. The close started its usual increase, and was up to 23,000 contracts at 14:57 with two minutes remaining.

Then all hell broke loose.

"Paper", or institutional representation, was stalking the close; the pit audio feed so stated. Directly in front of the bell 1,000 contracts were bought - as near as I could tell at the market.

Those are "Big" contracts, each being 5 of the /ES minis; this was, in effect, a 5,000 contract /ES market order.

The reaction was instantaneous. The offer side of the market collapsed and the /ES rocketed higher. In the pit, trades went off as high as 925, but on the E-Mini trades were recorded as high as 927.75. As quickly as it got there, it collapsed back to 922 - a nearly six-handle (3/4 of one percent) straight-up and down spike.

Now here's the problem:

For me to believe this was "organic", that is, this was an un-forced order, I have to believe that someone wanted to go home net long the equivalent of 5,000 /ES contracts into the weekend at a severely disadvantaged price. The market had been calm all day; if you wanted to buy 1,000 spoos (equivalent to 5,000 E-Minis) there was plenty of opportunity to do so all day long. This sort of market order was guaranteed to dislocate the market - so the buyer had to simply not give a damn what sort of price they got.

How bad of a fill was this?

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