Screwball

Around 171 S&P points in 2 hours 15 minutes. This is not a normal market. I'm guessing some pain was felt by some.

Overlooked data point today; US Jobless Claims Reach Six-Week High in Wake of Hurricane Ian

Still down, but the market is recovering nicely so far. *** Good thing we didn't make that SPY trade - talk about getting smoked

I don't remember the exact numbers, but we (those on SS) got an X% raise (like this one) last year but our supplemental insurance went up enough to eat all our gains and then some. Thanks assholes.

Consumer Price Index Summary Ouch! Your move Jay.

Thinking later about this. A few pages ago Del brought up the "Flash Boys" book, which is about HFT (high frequency trading). The price of servers close to the exchange. Millions spent running fiber optic across oceans. All to save milliseconds. The couple "impulse" trades I just documented happen each and every day by retail traders, or those who run their own money. Just not quite as fast. But that is how trading works - millions of times a day - for billions and billions of dollars. While we can trade billions of dollars of stocks in milliseconds, it takes 3 days to settle those trades (tracked by CUSIP #). How fucked up is that? It gets better. When our trade clears, and we get our confirmation, the $357.04 buy price is $357.04XX. Apparently scalping XX part of a penny millions and millions of times a day makes Wall Street money. Of course it does. And somehow legal.

That's only half of the trade.

I had a chance to look this over. Chart porn incoming. I'll start with this one from before. I have now done the math. If you were looking to get into this trade on Tuesday, what price will you get? The first issue is we are looking at the S&P 500 and not the SPY ETF as the means to make the trade. We can't buy the S&P. I'm looking to trade off the 3588.11 level, to the lower end of the gap at 3739.22. Around a 4% yield if you get the breaks. That in and of itself isn't very tempting. We are looking at the S&P to give us buy/sell points, which would look like this if we bought out of the gate on Tuesday; The problem is - we are not, and can't, buy the S&P, so we have to use an ETF. In this case, SPY. A derivative of the index. Below is a chart with the same buy/sell point except it is a chart of the ETF. I based the values on a buy in point on Tuesday, and the low of the day the gap would close on 10/6. Buy at $357.04 with a gap close of $371 ish. So you might make $400 bucks on a 10 grand trade. The SPY chart; Hard to see anything here, which is why I prefer to use the index for timing instead of the ETF. We knew enough on Monday to not make this trade. Some of the best trades ever, are the ones you don't make.

I was busy with school all day so I haven't looked at the charts yet. I expected a bounce here. Mostly because some Fed people (not only here) were getting dovish the other day. Then there is that $3588.11 level thing. Intraday on Monday it hit that level right to the penny, and the rest of the day went up. A bullish sign. I haven't done the math, but a gap fill looks like it might be worth it. I don't know what you could have paid for the SPY ETF (I would use SPY because it is the most liquid) that morning, but I think there was still room to get in the trade.

This interests me because I'm an oil guy. Disclosure; I'm long oil. I don't know what all this jawboning is going to do, but there seems to be some "issues" to jawbone about. What do we think is going to happen here? I don't want to get into a political pissing match, only what might happen as far as the results of this current spat with the kingdom. Simple answers please.

I'm having a hard time finding any good news out of anything. So I watch the charts - human behavior you might say. First, if we were still in our oil trade it might be time to dump that and take the grand or so we made - or maybe not. Let's take a peek at some chart porn. 9 month 1 day chart of the S&P. Notice the 3588.11. The other day the market reversed in the middle of the day and the pundits blamed it on some Fed dick jawboning. I don't think so. It bounced off that 3588.11 to the penny (shown on a daily chart). This level goes back to the last week of August of 2020. Things are getting dicey. Next stop 3393.52 if shit doesn't change. Will the money printers of the world capitulate? Don't know. But there might be a trade here.

It's not interesting, it's fucking illegal. But nothing is illegal for these pukes. The people at the Fed were doing the same thing. We get lip service they are going to fix this but that's all it ever is - lip service. They are corrupt to the core and laws only apply to us serfs. Fuck all these pieces of shit.

FTA: It was really difficult to read that article. What a bunch of complete and utter horseshit. The Bernank should be run out of town with a pike up his ass. Fuck him.

Crude back into the 90s. IF we would have kept the oil trade we would be up $1591.50. Crude has went up around %22 in the last 11 days (9 trading days). Our local gas went from $3.49 to $3.89.

compounding/exponents are a bitch *** Speaking of which - the search for yield. Posted somewhere above are bank rates for money sitting in a bank account. .01, ain't it great. When do these rate hike filter down to our bank accounts????? But I digress... Since interest rates have risen, a one month T-bill is once again a way to make a better return than our money sitting in bank accounts, and still have the ability to get liquid in a short period of time. I started a bond ladder this week buying 1 month T-bills, and will do so each week for the next 3 weeks. Then roll them over the next month. The latest auction went for $9979.30 (out of your bank account to the US Treasury) which will return $10k in a month if you spent the 10 grand - so you make 20 bucks and some change. If you rotate 4 of them you are making around $80 a month on every $40k investment, which is better than .01 will pay on the same amount. Investing boredom.

I snipped a bunch out of a few previous posts, but this goes back to our oil trade. We didn't lose any money, so it wasn't a bad trade. Looking back, probably should have sold when it closed the gap and been happy with the $450ish, given the circumstances. But you never know. A few days later OPEC decides to get in the ball game and shit changes. The two dashed horizontal lines are our buy/sell points, the vertical dashed is the day we sold. Today, it closed at $71.94. If we would have stayed in the trade, we would be up $1117.50. That's the kind of shit that drives you nuts. But you didn't know OPEC was going to do this. Or, maybe you should have had a better clue.

OPEC+ to cut production by 2 million barrels. Crude up about %1.5 on the news.

She is buds with Icahn so probably made some nice jack too.

Now that I have more time. I found this interesting because of Carl Icahn. I've considered him the "takeover insider" for as long as I've followed the markets. The guy who "knew" something. CNBC's Karen Finerman of their Fast Money (5pm) show openly and often talked about trading on Icahn rumors as an example, but many others promoted him. Not that I think that is a good idea, but in this case, it might have been. I don't follow that stuff like I once did, so I don't know how CNBC spun it all. Of course it is Bubblevision. When this stuff happens the moves are huge, kinda like drug company disclosures. It's also like playing penny stocks. Huge moves in a short period of time - massive money to be made. None of this shit goes on without going through some of the largest Wall Street banks who control the primary market in trading, but the takeover as well. We play in the secondary, which halted TWTR trading today for a period of time as the deal "finalized?" And probably helped goose the market as well.

Icahn, Others Clean Up on Musk's Twitter About-Face - WSJ <-- might be pay walled.

Inflation hits my local dive. A few times a week I go to a local dive bar for a beer. Good place to get your ass kicked if you decide to be stupid. Beer prices went from $2.50 to $2.75. I understand and I'm good. I have fun talking to the "Cheers's crowd" and their day to day "stuff." Where the problem lies is in the change. At $2.50, I can have 4 beers, tip the bartender $3, and go home with no change. Now that we have and extra quarter to math out... I don't want to deal with change, because banks. I hate banks.

Unfunded state pension liabilities grow to $8.28 trillion U.N. Calls On Fed, Other Central Banks to Halt Interest-Rate Increases - WSJ - <-- that might be paywalled. Everyone wants free money. **** The markets are soaring today. Nothing from the financial wizards yet (other than speculation). Crude is up almost 5% and RBOB gasoline over %6. If this bounce holds past today I'm watching the 3749.45 level on the S&P. That would close a small gap.

That is one. There is never only one cockroach. But there are other things to watch; Closed Board Meeting on October 3, 2022 - Advanced Notice of a Meeting under Expedited Procedures Given the news about EU banks, futures were down last night after open, but have since rebounded well into the green. Some are saying this is an emergency meeting, but don't think it is. As I understand it, it was scheduled, and this is routine. Now the expedited part may be what is different. Not sure, but it looks like some people expect a change in policy (interest rate hike) to come from this meeting. Along with those issues, OPEC has said they are going to cut production this week, to be announced on Wednesday I believe. So crude is up %4.5 percent as I type this. Which will probably show up at the pump in the near future. This should be an interesting week for those who follow the markets. Lots of moving pieces to keep track of. Oh, and Kim Kardashian got whacked by the SEC for spewing shit about Cryptos. Like anyone really gives one good fuck about that, or other stupid political bullshit they seem amused with.

Yes. By Michael Lewis. All his market books are good. I have them all. Speaking of HFT and banks, there are Tweets and articles going around that a couple of banks in Europe are in trouble. Great, maybe we can bail out banks again.

Assuming you are talking about the pipelines. From 2011. I couldn't find the article I was looking for but this will work. New Transatlantic Cable Built to Shave 5 Milliseconds off Stock Trades - Popular Mechanics There are more things going through the water than oil pipelines. Cut the big money pipe and see how fast shit hits the fan.