I would love to see a market rule that an order - whether buy or sell - has to be left up for 1 minute before it can be canceled. That would put the hft's out of business in a hurry.

DarJones

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;300010]I would love to see a market rule that an order - whether buy or sell - has to be left up for 1 minute before it can be canceled. That would put the hft's out of business in a hurry.

DarJones[/QUOTE]Or, to allow for the occasional genuine mistake, one immediate cancellation is allowed each minute, but all other cancellations can be made only after the order has been left up for at least 1 minute.

[QUOTE=garo;300002]Yes it is pretty clear they were doing a prop-up job on Friday as they would have had egg on their face otherwise. Look at what happened today. A 10% decline already when the wider market is up 2%.

PS: I'll check a Bloomberg tomorrow to make sure what you saw wasn't just a data glitch.[/QUOTE]

Garo, if possible can you also use your Bloomberg access to find the total float at the end of Friday and yesterday? I am going to track the share price and market float as they evolve, but forgot to snapshot those data for the first 2 trading days. For today we have these key stats:

5/22: [b]31.00 Down 3.03(-8.90%)[/b]
Shares Outstanding: 2.74B
Float: 772.60M

That translates to a market cap of $85B, down another $8B today, but still 2x larger than Bank of America and nearly as large as Amazon.com, by way of comparison.

----------------------------------

Hat trick of Reuters articles this morning:

[url=http://links.reuters.com/r/TVKJ6/QWRVO/16L3X8/UNTVV/EX0COK/YT/h?a=http://links.reuters.com/r/TVKJ6/QWRVO/16L3X8/UNTVV/MS547Q/YT/h]Labor union hopes of ousting Wisconsin Governor Walker fade[/url]: [i]MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Democrats and unions hoping to turf Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker out of office over his efforts to tame the power of organized labor are finding it tough going with only two weeks to go before a historic recall election.[/i]

Apparently it`s easier to organize one`s union pals to occupy the state legislature than to get folks -especially those poor slobs working in the private sector - to actually vote to help preserve one's cushy pay & benefit packages. (Yeah, I know that makes me sound like Kock-Bros-sponsored 1%er; if it's any consolation I think Walker is a bit of a douche, too, but he is trying to get the state budget into long-term whack).


[url=http://links.reuters.com/r/TVKJ6/QWRVO/16L3X8/UNTVV/U1EQIH/YT/h?a=http://links.reuters.com/r/TVKJ6/QWRVO/16L3X8/UNTVV/EX0CFD/YT/h]Silicon Valley takes Facebook fizzle in stride[/url]: [i]SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook's lackluster initial public offering performance is a black eye for many on Wall Street and could have ramifications for similar upcoming deals such as an offering by Twitter, but venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are keen to shrug off Facebook's stumble - at least for now.[/i]

Translation: "Forgot how much money our relentless overhyping of this turd-in-the-punchbowl cost you ... have we got a great new disruptive technology paradigm for you..."


[url=http://links.reuters.com/r/TVKJ6/QWRVO/16L3X8/UNTVV/B586GD/YT/h?a=http://links.reuters.com/r/TVKJ6/QWRVO/16L3X8/UNTVV/C46OJK/YT/h]Gingrich's private ventures are going bankrupt[/url]: [i](Reuters) - ATLANTA - When he entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination in May 2011, Newt Gingrich was the prosperous head of a small empire commonly known as Newt Inc, which included both for-profit consultancies and nonprofit foundations. Altogether, these entwined ventures pulled in more than $110 million over the past decade. Now the vestiges of this empire are mired in debt, as is Gingrich's campaign fund. A bankruptcy proceeding under way in Atlanta will determine whether[/i]

With a record of sound fiscal stewardship like that, he is obviously highly qualified to be president of the biggest debtor nation on earth.

Wouldn't it be nice if this worked?
(to any real degree, and I don't mean in Italy)

[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/ferrari-crackdown-italy-declaring-war-tax-cheats-035345210--abc-news-topstories.html"]Ferrari Crackdown: Italy Declaring War on Tax Cheats[/URL]

[QUOTE]Across Italy police are cracking down on Ferrari and Lamborghini drivers, but not because they are driving too fast. Italy, like so much of southern Europe, is drowning in debt, so police are pursuing drivers to make sure they are declaring – and therefore paying taxes on – earnings that would allow them to afford cars worth as much as half a million dollars.

The targeting is part of an ongoing war on tax cheats, an attempt to shore up $2.5 trillion of the country's public debt and change a culture that has often prided itself on avoiding taxes. Tax authorities have long carried out much-publicized checks on owners of luxury cars, yachts, even nightclubs that don't issue proper receipts. But since the unelected, technocratic government took power in November, it has made enforcing tax collections a priority.

The crackdown seems to be working and -- some say – slowly changing the tax culture. Italian officials say they have discovered more than $12 billion in unpaid taxes already this year, and have identified more than 2,000 luxury car owners who underpaid taxes.
[/QUOTE]

[url=http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/05/how-facebook-fucked-up-its-own-ipo/]How Facebook Fvcked Vp Its Own IPO | Ritholtz.com[/url]

Barry R. does not mince words in this one - youch.

[Note my exceedingly clever Latin-esque obscuring of BR's naughty language - no way the children reading the forum will ever see through my clever disguise, I'm sure]

Bill Black`s take(down) of JP Morgan`s "hedging loss" is on Barry Ritholtz`s site today. Who knew the Man-in-Black was such a wit, as well as a world-class financial-fraud-sniffer-outer?

[url=http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/05/jpmorgans-addiction-to-gambling-on-derivatives/]JPMorgan’s Addiction to Gambling on Derivatives[/url]
[quote]JPMorgan’s flacks and apologists have, unintentionally, exposed the fact that their cover story – hedging gone bad – is false. JPMorgan runs the world’s largest gambling operation in financial derivatives. The New York Times reported the key facts, but not the analytics, in an article entitled “Discord at Key JPMorgan Unit is Faulted in Loss.” The analytics suggest that the latest JPMorgan cover story – it was JPMorgan’s “Achilles the heel” (based in the UK) who caused the loss – is misleading.

The thrust of the story is that in the beginning JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) was run by a fair princess (Ina Drew) and all was fabulous. Sadly, Ms. Drew contracted Lyme’s Disease and was unable to ensure peace and prosperity in her land. The evil Achilles Macris, based in the UK, became disloyal and mean. He made massive, bad purchases of financial derivatives that caused major losses. CIO senior officers based in the U.S. (and women to boot) tried to warn Achilles but he screamed at them and refused to listen and learn. The just king, Jamie Dimon, did not act promptly to save his kingdom from loss because of his great confidence in Princess Drew.

The personal story of Achilles acting like a heel makes compelling journalism, but it obscures rather than clarifies the analysis as to why JPMorgan poses a clear and present danger to the global economy.[/quote]
The analytics follow - full piece well worth a read.

"Obama spending binge never happened

Commentary: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s"

[URL]http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor[/URL]

[quote=Rex Nutting]WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.[/quote]... showing the effectiveness of Republican counterfactual propaganda.[quote]

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.[/quote][URL]http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals[/URL][quote]

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.[/quote][URL]http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42905[/URL][quote]

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Why do people think Obama has spent like a drunken sailor? It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress.

Like a relief pitcher who comes into the game with the bases loaded, Obama came in with a budget in place that called for spending to increase by hundreds of billions of dollars in response to the worst economic and financial calamity in generations.

By no means did Obama try to reverse that spending. Indeed, his budget proposals called for even more spending in subsequent years. But the Congress (mostly Republicans but many Democrats, too) stopped him. If Obama had been a king who could impose his will, perhaps what the Republicans are saying about an Obama spending binge would be accurate.

Yet the actual record doesn’t show a reckless increase in spending. Far from it.

Before Obama had even lifted a finger, the CBO was already projecting that the federal deficit would rise to $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2009. The government actually spent less money in 2009 than it was projected to, but the deficit expanded to $1.4 trillion because revenue from taxes fell much further than expected, due to the weak economy and the emergency tax cuts that were part of the stimulus bill.

The projected deficit for the 2010-13 period has grown from an expected $1.7 trillion in January 2009 to $4.4 trillion today. Lower-than-forecast revenue accounts for 73% of the $2.7 trillion increase in the expected deficit. That’s assuming that the Bush and Obama tax cuts are repealed completely.

When Obama took the oath of office, the $789 billion bank bailout had already been approved. Federal spending on unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicare was already surging to meet the dire unemployment crisis that was well underway. See the CBO’s January 2009 budget outlook.[/quote][URL]http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41753[/URL][quote]

Obama is not responsible for that increase, though he is responsible (along with the Congress) for about $140 billion in extra spending in the 2009 fiscal year from the stimulus bill, from the expansion of the children’s health-care program and from other appropriations bills passed in the spring of 2009.

If we attribute that $140 billion in stimulus to Obama and not to Bush, we find that spending under Obama grew by about $200 billion over four years, amounting to a 1.4% annualized increase.

After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was retreating from the quagmire in Vietnam.

In per capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars).

By the way, real government spending rose 12.3% a year in Hoover’s four years. Now there was a guy who knew how to attack a depression by spending government money![/quote]Got that?

"After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s ..."

"In per capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars)."

- - -

BTW, if any of you want to contest that, you'll need to show us figures and sources that support your contention.

And where do you think that inflation came from Cheesehead? And just how much did the money supply grow under Obama? And how much loss of value for that hard earned money will we suffer over the next 10 years because of the increase in money supply?

Your post is a single facet of a many faceted issue. He may not have increased spending in a major way, but he did print boat loads of new money that made my dollars worth less and less as time goes on.

I also find it interesting that you credit Obama with the reduced spending, yet from your own post we see this.
[quote]By no means did Obama try to reverse that spending. Indeed, his budget proposals called for even more spending in subsequent years. But the Congress (mostly Republicans but many Democrats, too) stopped him. [/quote]
We can see that it wasn't because Obama was fiscally conservative, rather it was because congress didn't let him spend excessively.

DarJones

[QUOTE=cheesehead;300171][quote=Rex Nutting]Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Why do people think Obama has spent like a drunken sailor? It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.[/quote][/QUOTE]

Talk about cherry-picking the data to put lipstick on that pig... so let's see if I have this straight:

Spending rocketed way, way above already-dire levels (relative to receipts) in W. Bush's last year due to massive government propping of financial markets. Despite that allegedly being a short-term "desperate measures" record budget, it is supposedly to Obama's credit that he didn't go even further into deficit-spending outer space, rather such bloated, over-40%-deficit-financed budgets are now merely "the new normal", which somehow makes Obama a paragon of frugality.

Hyperpartisanship is blinding whichever side it's on, Cheesehead.

Just because Obama (with approval from congress, both overt and covert) has been spending like the proverbial drunken sailor for the entirety of his now-nearly-complete 4-year term does not make him less of a drunk than W. Bush. To extend the metaphor a bit, Bush may have dragged Obama into that portside bar and stood him the first few rounds, but Bush got himself ejected around midnight, and now it's 4 a.m. and the party is going as strong as ever, with Obama running the tab and buying the rounds. "But to his credit, the place hasn't been burnt to the waterline".

-----------------------------------

Newly-elected French president Hollande is doing precisely what I hoped he would when I was rooting for him to win, namely play the other-people`s-money-free-spending socialist buffoon to the hilt, thus hastening the (needed) dissolution of the EMU. This is from the German [i]Die Welt[/i] today, translation mine (non-German readers can feed the link to Google Translate for a reasonably-decipherable software translation):

[url=www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article106373137/Hollande-bringt-das-Fundament-Europas-ins-Wanken.html]Hollande brings the foundation of Europe into tottering[/url]: [i]The French President dreams of reclining in a hammock made of German tax money. The Chancellor must not give in to the Euro-bonds. At stake is more than the taxpayers' money.[/i]

[i]
(p.s.: You ribald-wordplay-loving English types will have a field day with the German word for "tottering". Thankfully, this commentator is above such sophomoric silliness, except by way of pointing out the rich possibilities here.)[/i]

-----------------------------------

A ZH reader [url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/europeans-betting-millions-facebook-will-plunge-another-30-december#comment-2459274]posted the following interesting data[/url] o Facebook user trends - which I have not seen independent confirmation of, except for the (obvious-by-following-link) Google-hits data:
[quote]Facebook has clearly plateaued and is in decline among users. Their bounce rate, which is the estimated percentage of visits that have a single page view, has increased dramatically from 12% in Jan. 2011 to 26.4% currently. FB's Time on Site stats have gone from 32 minutes per day (12/2011) each user to 24 minutes per day. People are spending less time on FB. Their ad click-thru rate is half the industry average at a paltry 0.051% of active users. Google Trends also shows a flattening in the curve of searches for Facebook. [url]http://www.google.com/trends/?q=facebook[/url][/quote]

On a humorous note, I think I found the master site where all the ZH goldbugs-slash-wannabe-cave-dwelling-survivalists get their playbook from. Instead of simply naming it, allow me to instead [url=http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/PrisonPlanet]link to a different site[/url] which paints an amusing portrait of the ZH-survivalist-belowed master site by commenting on the master site's sponsors, such as this one:
[quote][url=http://www.gcnlive.com/store/store.php?ref=6]Midas Resources[/url]

Of course all good survivalists want to ensure they are well invested come the inevitable collapse of paper money and civilization as a whole. Paper money will be of little use when we're all hiding in caves, engaged in guerrilla war against the government, NATO and UN invasion forces. Gold on the other hand will be very useful because… well, it's not really clear how it's useful or even practical to carry heavy gold coins while running from FEMA death squads and their robotic hounds. [/quote]

[QUOTE=cheesehead;300171]BTW, if any of you want to contest that, you'll need to show us figures and sources that support your contention.[/QUOTE]

That's the most contorted and blatant spin job I've seen in quite a while.

Since you like numbers, I'll use your own data to back up Ernst's remarks.

Take the first spreadsheet at [url]http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals[/url]
Now create a new column that averages the 4 years of Federal spending during a presidential term. Compare that average to the average 4 years prior. I'll save you the trouble:

[CODE]
Obama's 2009-2012 average budget is 32.6% above
Bush 2's 2005-2008 average budget which was 30.2% above
Bush 2's 2001-2004 average budget which was 23.5% above
Clinton's 1997-2000 average budget which was 13.4% above
Clinton's 1993-1996 average budget which was 16.6% above
Bush 1's 1989-1992 average budget which was 27.4% above
Reagan's 1985-1988 average budget which was 29.9% above
Reagan's 1981-1984 average budget which was 57.1% above
Carter's 1977-1980 average budget.
[/CODE]

Obama's first term has overseen the biggest increase in spending since Reagan in 1981-1984. Note the above figures are not adjusted for inflation. Obama has enjoyed a rather than benign inflation rate. Reagan's first term had some rather horrid inflation. It may turn out that adjusted for inflation Obama may be the worst President we've had with regards to holding the line on spending.

Care to rethink your "Obama the frugal" label and denounce the Democratic "counterfactual propaganda"?


[B][i][Moderator note: Cheesehead's rebuttal to this post and earlier posts has been moved [url=http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=16852]to its own special thread.[/url]][/i][/B]

George, cheeseSpin didn't check the figures, he just posted what someone else wrote.

On the EU front today, signs of tottering among the banks in Spain reached a new point today. [QUOTE][B]Spain's Bankia seeks 19bn-euro bailout from government[/B][/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18213848[/url]
Cut to the chase, we are seeing the public airing out of some very private laundry. This is just the beginning. Over the next few months there will be an overwhelming plea for money from banks and local governments within Spain. Within 2 months, they should be at the point where an EU bailout is inevitable. Even now, the EU is propping up Spain with not-so-subtle manipulations such as buying Spanish debt on the open market in order to keep the interest rate under 7%. As an aside, 7% seems to be the magic number at which most of the at risk EU govts reach untenable debt levels. Don't you wonder why?

DarJones

[i][Moderator note: The remainder the ensuing discussion and whine-fest has been moved [url=http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=16852]to its own special thread.[/url]][/i]