Month: February 2021

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Book: Broken Markets: How High Frequency Trading and Predatory Practices on Wall Street Are Destroying Investor Confidence and Your Portfolio

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Broken Markets: How High Frequency Trading and Predatory Practices on Wall Street Are Destroying Investor Confidence and Your Portfolio

Sal Arnuk is partner,  cofounder, and co-head of equity trading of Themis Trading, LLC, a leading independent agency brokerage firm that trades equities for institutional money managers and hedge funds. Arnuk has extensive experience in equities trading and is an expert in electronic trading and market structure.  Prior to founding Themis in 2002, he was with Instinet Corporation, where he headed the team responsible for equity sales and trading for institutional money managers, for more than 10 years.

Learn
• Why retail investors are pulling their money out of stocks in unprecedented amounts
• How decades of regulation created the broken markets we have today
• Why there are more than 40 exchanges, sub-exchanges, and dark pools rife with conflicts of interest where stocks are traded today
• How the stock exchanges became for-profit companies and fundamentally changed market structure
• Why the Flash Crash happened―and why it will happen again
• How there are two markets―the fast, accurate one that high frequency traders see and the slower one that retail and institutional investors see

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Article: Short Sellers Still Targeting Retail, Biotech ETFs

Article - Media, Publications

Short Sellers Still Targeting Retail, Biotech ETFs

Wayne Duggan, 18 February 2021

After a huge second half of 2020, the S&P 500 is off to another hot start to 2021. With stock market valuations getting more bloated by the week, there are plenty of skeptics that believe certain stocks and sectors have come too far too fast.

There is currently $244 billion in aggregate domestic ETF short interest, according to S3 Partners analyst Ihor Dusaniwsky. Over the past month, Dusaniwsky said short sellers have increased their exposure by about $14 billion. Continue reading “Article: Short Sellers Still Targeting Retail, Biotech ETFs”

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Article: Trading hot stocks like GameStop seems fun until you look beneath the surface

Article - Media

Trading hot stocks like GameStop seems fun until you look beneath the surface

Congress is asking questions about whether middlemen or “market makers” like Citadel that execute stock trades really give small investors the best prices.

Gretchen Morgenson, ABCNews, 18 February 2021

Market makers like Citadel make money by pocketing the difference between the price at which they buy shares — the bid — and the price they receive from selling them to Robinhood clients, the offer. Other firms in the business are Virtu Americas, G1X Execution Services and Two Sigma Securities.

Read full article.

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Article: GameStop frenzy sparks fresh investment in stock-trading apps

Article - Media, Publications

GameStop frenzy sparks fresh investment in stock-trading apps

Jane Lanhee Lee, 18 February 2021

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) – The recent trading frenzy centered on GameStop Corp and other “meme” stocks is sparking a wave of investor interest in start-ups aiming to mimic the success of Robinhood Markets Inc, whose no-fee brokerage app has helped drive a trading boom.

Public.com, a direct competitor to Robinhood that boasts a host of blue-chip backers, said on Wednesday it had raised $220 million, valuing it at $1.2 billion on the private market. Another well-heeled rival, Stash, said earlier this month it had raised $125 million, while Webull Financial LLC, backed by Chinese investors, is also raising fresh funds after enjoying an influx of new users.

Robinhood, meanwhile, raised some $3.4 billion in the midst of the GameStop furor to assure its stability amid rapid growth and demands by its trading partners that it post more collateral. Continue reading “Article: GameStop frenzy sparks fresh investment in stock-trading apps”

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Article: Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation

Article - Media, Publications

Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation

Jonathan Ponciano,  18 February 2021

A Congressional hearing into the GameStop mania that triggered the largest weekly selloff since late October is underway, with some of the key players in the saga—billionaire Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin, Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev, Reddit Cofounder Steve Huffman and the 34-year-old securities broker behind the Roaring Kitty online persona—all set to testify.

Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-Mo.) kicked off the hearing by asking Tenev whether he misled investors on January 28 when he denied that Robinhood had a liquidity problem despite raising more than $3 billion in the following days to meet reserve requirements from the Securities & Exchange Commission. Continue reading “Article: Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation”

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Article: Texas power consumers to pay the price of winter storm

Article - Media, Publications

Texas power consumers to pay the price of winter storm

Scott DiSavino, Stephanie Kelly, 18 February 2021

(Reuters) – Texas residents suffering a winter storm that has left millions without power are set to face a future challenge in higher utility bills, after the days-long cold snap put an unprecedented strain on the state’s power network.

Some 2.7 million households in Texas, the largest electricity consuming state in the United States, were without heat on Wednesday as freezing temperatures in a normally temperate part of the country overwhelmed demand, causing blackouts and widespread anger.

Wholesale power prices soared more than 300-fold, stirring memories of the price spikes that accompanied California’s energy crisis of 2000-2001, when Enron and others artificially increased prices. Continue reading “Article: Texas power consumers to pay the price of winter storm”

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Article: Explainer: How were more than 100% of GameStop’s shares shorted?

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Explainer: How were more than 100% of GameStop’s shares shorted?

John McCrank, 18 February 2021

NEW YORK (Reuters) – One area of focus from a U.S. House of Representatives panel on Thursday will likely be on the role short selling played in the GameStop market mayhem.

Executives from trading platform Robinhood and hedge funds Melvin Capital and Citadel will be grilled following the retail-driven trading frenzy that sparked wild gyrations in GameStop and other heavily shorted stocks. Continue reading “Article: Explainer: How were more than 100% of GameStop’s shares shorted?”

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Article: SEC Data Show $359 Million of GameStop Shares Failed to Deliver

Article - Media

SEC Data Show $359 Million of GameStop Shares Failed to Deliver

Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg, 17 February 2017

  • GameStop surged more than 1,700% before curbs were implemented
  • More than 2 million shares failed to deliver at peak of mania

“Fails-to-deliver can occur for a number of reasons on both long and short sales,” reads a disclaimer on the SEC website. “Therefore, fails-to-deliver are not necessarily the result of short selling, and are not evidence of abusive short selling or ‘naked’ short selling.”

Comment: The SEC is full of shit and a RICO organization complicit in Class A felonies enabled by the Department of Justice and the Senate Banking Committee. For the slow learners, start with the Cartoons.

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Article: GameStop Frenzy Prompts SEC to Weigh More Short Sale Transparency

Article - Media

GameStop Frenzy Prompts SEC to Weigh More Short Sale Transparency

House lawmakers meeting Thursday plan to examine the GameStop trading and discuss the dearth of short-sale data

Dave Michaels and Dawn Lim, Wall Street Journal, 17 February 2021

The Securities and Exchange Commission was ordered 11 years ago to impose such rules but never did it. Now, dealing with the fallout from frenetic trading in GameStop Corp. shares, the agency under new leadership is considering using its authority to shine more light on the mechanics of the bearish trades.

Comment: Bearish trades my ass. Naked short selling is a Class A Felony. It is counterfeiting.  It is fraud, It is cheating widows and orphans and wiping out inventors and entrepreneurs, turning gold into lead for profit. It is also on occasion collusion with foreign governments (the UK more often than China) and thus treason, sabotaging the US economy the US now being in a state of war.

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Web: SEC Data Show $359 Million of GameStop Shares Failed to Deliver – Thank you Bloomberg for finally reporting the news

Web

SEC Data Show $359 Million of GameStop Shares Failed to Deliver – Thank you Bloomberg for finally reporting the news

Reddit, 17 February 2021

As usual, Bloomberg posting some truth embedded in a sea of lies and narrative.

“GameStop stock, for months among the most heavily shorted on the New York Stock Exchange, surged more than 1,700% from Jan. 1 through Jan. 27 as a legion of Reddit users piled on, forcing bearish traders to scramble for shares and brokers to take the highly unusual step of curbing trading.”

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/sec-data-show-359-million-of-gamestop-shares-failed-to-deliver

Apparently “unusual” is the new term for “illegal” 🤦🏻‍♂️

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Article: Reddit Trader Roaring Kitty Accused Of Fraud In The Latest Wild Lawsuit Coming Out Of GameStop Saga

Article - Media, Publications

Reddit Trader Roaring Kitty Accused Of Fraud In The Latest Wild Lawsuit Coming Out Of GameStop Saga

Jonathan Ponciano, 17 February 2021

One of the most outspoken retail traders on Reddit’s WallStreetBets discussion board has been targeted in a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging the 34-year-old securities broker behind the widely followed “Roaring Kitty” persona committed securities fraud for misrepresenting himself as an amateur trader online while pumping up GameStop stock prices.

“As a licensed securities professional, including the period he was licensed by and associated with MML and MassMutual, Gill was obligated to follow various securities laws, [SEC] rules and regulations and FINRA rules,” the 38-page suit says. The suit specifically references five securities rules, including one that requires licensed securities professionals to observe “high standards of commercial honor and just and equitable principles of trade” while conducting business and another saying that their public communications–on social media included–should “be fair and balanced” and “not omit any material fact or qualification” if the omission could mislead investors.

Read Full Article

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Article: As Hearing Looms, Here Is How Gamma Was Weaponized Against GameStop

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As Hearing Looms, Here Is How Gamma Was Weaponized Against GameStop

Tyler Durden, 17 February 2021

In late January 2021, GameStop experienced a once-in-a-decade squeeze that has captivated the world’s attention. It was a premeditated and programmatic exercise, orchestrated by coordinated stock and option buying across the retail and professional community, resulting in large institutional entities losing billions of dollars. Investment houses with significant short positions did not expect a stock with GameStop’s fundamental profile to increase +2,500% in price over less than three weeks; therefore, they did not have the controls in place to handle the incredible levels of stock and call option purchases. The frenzy drew comments from the White House, provoked a social media crackdown, caused brokerage units to restrict trading, and has led to a Congressional hearing on GameStop on Thursday, February 18th.
Continue reading “Article: As Hearing Looms, Here Is How Gamma Was Weaponized Against GameStop”

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Article: We were ‘dangerously close’ to collapse of ‘entire system,’ says Interactive Brokers founder ahead of GameStop hearing

Article - Media, Publications

We were ‘dangerously close’ to collapse of ‘entire system,’ says Interactive Brokers founder ahead of GameStop hearing

Mark DeCambre, 17 February 2021

That’s Thomas Peterffy, founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers Group Inc., detailing Wednesday on CNBC the dire situation in which the market stood in late January as individual investors on social-media platforms banded together to send a handful of heavily shorted stocks, including bricks-and-mortar videogame retailer GameStop Corp. GME, -11.43% and movie chain AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC, -0.72%, to sky-high levels, with shockwaves registering throughout the market.
Continue reading “Article: We were ‘dangerously close’ to collapse of ‘entire system,’ says Interactive Brokers founder ahead of GameStop hearing”

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