ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
“I understand that you do address issues of valuations through macroprudential policies in the first instance. But there’s a range of assets, and I know you do watch a range of assets. But from Bitcoin to corporate bonds to the stock market in general, to some of these morespecific meteoric rises in stocks like GameStop. … Read more
On Friday evening, headlines screamed that Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk had reportedly made a surprisingly bold and extremely risky decision to fight charges of fraud by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). On Saturday, it looked like reason and rationality prevailed with an official announcement of a settlement deal issuing a slap on the wrist … Read more
Source: CNBC Ever since LongFin Corp. (LFIN) soared astronomically four days into its stint as a publicly traded company, I have been fascinated by the story. At the time I covered the story, I wrote: “The trading in recent IPO LongFin Corp. (LFIN) may go down as iconic in this era of frenetic trading in … Read more
“I will be watching for signs of the durability of this latest Bitcoin bottom. If search interest wanes quickly, I will expect the recovery phase to fizzle relatively quickly like last time. If search interest remains robust, I will accordingly expect the recovery period to last longer.” This is what I wrote on January 18, … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on February 18, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) Traders sometimes copy the trading in options showing unusual trading activity under the assumption that someone (or some people) have privileged insight into an imminent big event or the short-term price … Read more
Like many strong momentum high-tech stocks, Baidu Incorporated (BIDU) has had an incredible run from its 2009 lows. In less than three years, the stock has increased over 16x from around $10 to over $160. Last week, BIDU traded below its 200-day moving average (DMA) for the first time since April, 2009. On Thursday, BIDU … Read more
A friend of mine, who is clearly an avid reader of all things financial, has recently showered me with commentary stemming from the SEC’s January request for comment on equity market structure. Starting on page 45 of this 74-page release, the SEC describes various issues surrounding High-Frequency Trading (HFT) and poses a comprehensive set of … Read more
I have a lot of respect for fund manager Doug Kass. His latest piece, “The Ramifications of the Goldman Sachs Case,” contextualizes the current push for financial reform, and it provides a succinct indictment of the practices that helped ignite the recent financial panic. However, I disagree with Kass’s casual link between the SEC’s charges … Read more
The news has rippled across the globe that the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) finally got around to charging Goldman Sachs with fraud: “The SEC alleges that Goldman Sachs structured and marketed a synthetic collateralized debt obligation (CDO) that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS). Goldman Sachs failed to disclose to … Read more