Podcast for Friday 11/11/11
With Europe under mounting pressure to act quickly to tackle its debt crisis, the leaders of Italy and Greece moved forcefully on Friday to reinvigorate their governments and show their sincerity about economic austerity. Financial markets rallied on the news.
MF Global fired all 1,066 of its brokerage employees on Friday, triggering anger and resentment about the firm's collapse after bad bets on European debt under former CEO Jon Corzine's leadership. How the abrupt, final blow was delivered upset many staff -- with some learning by e-mail and others through news on the television. "Fifteen years and no severance!" shouted one angry MF Global employee as he left the firm's offices on 5th Avenue in Manhattan after hugging the receptionist and doorman.
Email from a CFRN Partner
DeWayne,
Futures trading is not currently my livelihood, it's a secondary thing. But I wonderabout all those for who it is, and how many had cash in an account handled by MF Global. For 2 weeks now my cash totalling over $17K is not there for me, and I'm not seeing any promising developments in the news reports.
I find it especially disgusting that for those like myself, who had no trades on at the time, or who were fortunate enough to see trouble brewing and liquidated, are being put at the back of line, while all those with positions have had their accounts transferred and funded at another broker.
It's pretty clear to me that the missing $600 million is not going to be "found", and so now they are saying we will have to "share" the losses. And who knows how long before we get it, how much, or even if.
XXXX
Our heart goes out to our Partner and friend, as well as all clients and innocent employees of MF Global. We continue to pray for a swift resolution and fully support more stringent oversight within our industry to insure this tragedy is never repeated.
The Closing Bell
inside the zone...
The open of the 11/11/11 session Thursday afternoon was very quiet. Over 300,000 contracts traded in and around a 1 point range - our Weekly Trading Zone 1237/1238. There are many terms used to describe this type of behavior from "the market is coiling" to simply "a quiet market".
Whatever you call it, when the Asian markets opened the moves were dramatic and somewhat unusual.
The initial move of 14 points (Zone to Zone) took only 20k contracts. The next move (Zone to Zone) reversed the market and erased the gains on the back of just 40k contracts. The third move highlighted above required 50k contracts to complete (Zone to Zone). You will rarely ever see this type of movement during RTH - regular trading hours. On Globex it is more common but still a bit unusual. Always exercise additional caution and risk management when trading the Globex session and no matter what time of day you trade - Always use a stop!
As the European markets opened the rally was on. First a 10 point Zone to Zone move followed by a 12 point Zone to Zone move, and then things got quiet. Not eerily quiet, just Holiday quiet. The final 4-5 hours of today's market racked up a fair amount of volume 900k+ contracts but again all in and around a 1 point range - our Weekly Trading Zone 1261/1262.
Podcast for Friday 11/11/11