Wall Street Firms Using Their Dark Pools To Make Markets in Their Own Stocks

These self-named dark pools are operating as private exchanges, with a faux type of specialist system managing the order book, with all the insight and power that it entails.  The layman may not quite comprehend this, but anyone familiar with Wall Street operations and history will certainly do so.

That they are trading for their own parent company stocks, and possibly for their own books, ought to raise more than a few eyebrows. 

We ought to have internalized the lesson by now that markets are not naturally efficient and self-regulating.  But even moreso when the business of price setting and order matching is being done in darkness, and apparently with lax regulatory oversight and institutionalized conflicts of interest.

The lack of integrity in the Western financial system must seem appalling to anyone whose ears are not firmly taped to the corporate news feeds droning out of New York and London to their jaded listeners.  Another lie, another fraud, another abuse of oaths and trust.    Tra la, tra la, comme ci comme ça.

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

After Charges of Running a Price Fixing Cartel on Nasdaq in the 90s,
Wall Street Banks Are Now Trading Their Own Stocks in Darkness
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 3, 2014

On July 17, 1996, the U.S. Justice Department charged the biggest names on Wall Street, names like Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan and predecessor firms to Citigroup, with pricing fixing on the electronic stock market known as Nasdaq...

Yesterday we learned that the very same Wall Street firms charged with price fixing in the 90s have somehow conned their regulators into allowing them to own their own dark pools – effectively unregulated stock exchanges – and make markets in the stock of their very own Wall Street bank.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) – a self-regulatory Wall Street body (which under a previous name was responsible for missing the Nasdaq price fixing for more than a decade) released trading data yesterday for the dark pools operating the week of May 12 – 16. This was the first time such data has been released. The data releases are set to continue..."

Read the entire article with the details here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Cap and Fear

There are some very significant events happening behind the scenes, even though the markets would seem to hide this with their sleepily accommodative nature to the status quo.

I thought Volcker's call for a new Bretton Woods agreement was significant, in a Chamberlain-like manner. Volcker is certainly out of power, riding the tide of events more than shaping them now. But he certainly still has insights into what is going on.

I am a little surprised at the push by the neo-cons at this point to advance the New American Century. It makes me wonder.

There is plenty of room for speculation here. I will take a pass on it for now, and wait to see some indication of what is happening, before ranging out onto the seas of possibilities, and legends.

But I do know that this too shall pass.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

They had to restate the PMI number a couple of times this morning before they got it right.

I had not realized that they seasonally adjust these surveys. Do they seasonally adjust opinion polls too?

These markets are already acting like the dog days of summer, with an upward bias on sleepy volume.

There is a yawning divergence between Bonds and Stocks. I suspect this might be due to Fed interference on the Bond side, which we know about, as well as some free range tinkering with values on the Stock side.

Either way, this is going to end badly. I have an open mind to a summer slump, but unless something happens to provoke more selling at higher volumes we may just muddle along until something more traditional in the autumn, and event inspired. This is a midterm election coming up after all.

I found these words from Daniel Ellsberg below about Snowden and some other things to be worth hearing.

Have a pleasant evening.