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Everything I am reading (especially the Vanity Fair article) heavily suggests that the large trades in question are a single trader or group of traders. How els

Everything I am reading (especially the Vanity Fair article) heavily suggests that the large trades in question are a single trader or group of traders. How else could they mean, when they say "10 minutes before market close, this trade of XX,XXX e-Mini's happened"? Is there some dark-pooling going on that I'm not aware of, where transactions clear in bulk, that's making it look like it's a "single trade"? Otherwise, Matt Levine's argument doesn't seem like it's addressing the elephant in the room.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
At least one person* has claimed that some of the numbers were just obvious lies; that the 386,000 e-Minis Vanity Fair says "someone" bought in the closing 10 minutes on Friday was close to the total volume of thousands of trades in that interval. Note also that Vanity Fair used an extraordinarily loose definition of "group"; they don't mention any evidence that traders were collaborating, other than that they made the same trade near the same time. * https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/wall-street-has-a-few-problems-with-trump-chaos-trades-article https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/wall-stre...
- tigershark 7y ago
  On Friday near the close the volume is much higher. I repeat the same question that I asked in another comment, why they didn’t wait until Monday morning to buy it when the price was much lower? And they would have known it given the current market trend. I think that Occam’s razor gives the answer in this instance.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    Nobody can know for certain whether the market will be higher or lower on Monday. If you think it’s so easy to infer market trends where’s the billion dollars you made trading the e-mini?
    - tigershark 7y ago
      On Monday you’ll know for certain. Why they didn’t double down since the price was much lower?
  - tc313 7y ago
    If everyone knows that the price will be lower on Monday, then the price will be lower on Friday. You can’t look at a “trend” and know where the price will go, otherwise the price would already be there!
    - tigershark 7y ago
      Regardless, they saw that the price on Monday was much lower than on Friday, why they didn’t double down if they really had inside knowledge?
H8crilA 7y ago
This market opens late Sunday and closes late Friday. People trade a lot of /ES in the final hours before the close, because it's the last opportunity to hedge and set the portfolio before the weekend. Like every week.
dcolkitt 7y ago
The electronic order book at the CME is completely anonymous. Unless the CME provided the de-anonymized dataset, there's no way for a third party to know that two separate trades were initiated by the same person. None. Nada. Zero. The fact that the Vanity Fair article is just making the assertion that separate trades belong to the same person without explaining how they know this is pretty strong evidence that the journalist is just making shit up. Or at least is being hoodwinked by a supposed expert who is just making shit up. I'd be like me claiming that every single slot machine jackpot in Vegas last Tuesday was won by the same person. Then when I get challenged to provide evidence of it, saying "no, you provide evidence that it wasn't."
- latencyloser 7y ago
  Even if they got the exchange's order-book they'd probably just see a bunch of orders from some guys named Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. So many of these trades are routed or entered by brokers or other large firms.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    Due to regulations like MIFID you can’t hide trades behind a brokerage all the parties involved in the trade including the actual individuals (as in their passports or other government identifications) are recorded for each trade and reported to the regulators. You can’t have a broker issuing orders on your exchange without knowing who they are for and who were the individuals involved in requesting and approving the trade. JPM has also a responsibility in ensuring the trades it issues through its brokers aren’t tainted with insider trading.
    - latencyloser 7y ago
      Ah you're probably right. My mistake, I had left the industry before MIFID II took effect, I was unaware.
      - dogma1138 7y ago

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

At least one person* has claimed that some of the numbers were just obvious lies; that the 386,000 e-Minis Vanity Fair says "someone" bought in the closing 10 minutes on Friday was close to the total volume of thousands of trades in that interval. Note also that Vanity Fair used an extraordinarily loose definition of "group"; they don't mention any evidence that traders were collaborating, other than that they made the same trade near the same time. * https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/wall-street-has-a-few-problems-with-trump-chaos-trades-article https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/wall-stre...

tigershark 7y ago
On Friday near the close the volume is much higher. I repeat the same question that I asked in another comment, why they didn’t wait until Monday morning to buy it when the price was much lower? And they would have known it given the current market trend. I think that Occam’s razor gives the answer in this instance.
- esoterica 7y ago
  Nobody can know for certain whether the market will be higher or lower on Monday. If you think it’s so easy to infer market trends where’s the billion dollars you made trading the e-mini?
  - tigershark 7y ago
    On Monday you’ll know for certain. Why they didn’t double down since the price was much lower?
- tc313 7y ago
  If everyone knows that the price will be lower on Monday, then the price will be lower on Friday. You can’t look at a “trend” and know where the price will go, otherwise the price would already be there!
  - tigershark 7y ago
    Regardless, they saw that the price on Monday was much lower than on Friday, why they didn’t double down if they really had inside knowledge?

H8crilA 7y ago

This market opens late Sunday and closes late Friday. People trade a lot of /ES in the final hours before the close, because it's the last opportunity to hedge and set the portfolio before the weekend. Like every week.

dcolkitt 7y ago

The electronic order book at the CME is completely anonymous. Unless the CME provided the de-anonymized dataset, there's no way for a third party to know that two separate trades were initiated by the same person. None. Nada. Zero. The fact that the Vanity Fair article is just making the assertion that separate trades belong to the same person without explaining how they know this is pretty strong evidence that the journalist is just making shit up. Or at least is being hoodwinked by a supposed expert who is just making shit up. I'd be like me claiming that every single slot machine jackpot in Vegas last Tuesday was won by the same person. Then when I get challenged to provide evidence of it, saying "no, you provide evidence that it wasn't."

latencyloser 7y ago
Even if they got the exchange's order-book they'd probably just see a bunch of orders from some guys named Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. So many of these trades are routed or entered by brokers or other large firms.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Due to regulations like MIFID you can’t hide trades behind a brokerage all the parties involved in the trade including the actual individuals (as in their passports or other government identifications) are recorded for each trade and reported to the regulators. You can’t have a broker issuing orders on your exchange without knowing who they are for and who were the individuals involved in requesting and approving the trade. JPM has also a responsibility in ensuring the trades it issues through its brokers aren’t tainted with insider trading.
  - latencyloser 7y ago
    Ah you're probably right. My mistake, I had left the industry before MIFID II took effect, I was unaware.
    - dogma1138 7y ago