Dylan Ratigan nails it! The stock market is a joke.

Forex Market Pitfalls (Guest Post)

From Bryan Sayers, a ForexFraud.com exclusive:

How Forex Market Manipulation can Affect You

A number of formerly innocent forex traders have become increasingly aware of the possibility of forex market manipulation, despite the market’s huge size. The manipulation game tends to be played by large and active forex market participants like market making financial institutions and hedge funds.In fact, one of the pitfalls of technical trading is that large market players familiar with your methods can often reasonably anticipate where your stop loss and take profit orders are going to be placed in the market. The low liquidity seen in thin markets also provides ample opportunity for forex market manipulation.The following sections discuss some of the types of forex market manipulation and the situations in which they tend to occur.

Thin Markets

Thin markets provide fertile ground for forex market manipulation since large traders can put less pressure on the market to make a bigger impact on the price. For example, the trading time just after the Sydney open at 5pm EST when other more liquid forex markets like London and Tokyo are closed and New York is closing down for the night can be especially thin.Bank holidays and economic data releases also thin down trading in the forex market since many players are either on vacation or standing aside while the news comes out.

Stop Hunting

Forex traders using technical analysis to base their trades on tend to look for certain conditions or price action occurring in the market. For example, this might be a classic chart pattern like a head and shoulders bottom or a double top. Since everyone is pretty much looking at the same price data, this means that large players can reasonably anticipate where stop orders may be placed in the market, even if they are not themselves watching those orders.This situation can arise even when using technical analysis packages that have the best forex software reviews. Unfortunately, the phenomenon provides fertile ground for forex market manipulation, especially by large players trading in thin markets.For example consider the situation of a market in AUD/USD in which the price action has been forming a triangular consolidation pattern over the last week trading between converging trend lines. Many technical traders knowledgeable about how to use chart patterns when trading will be able to observe this formation themselves on their own charts.They will then probably look to buy low and sell high within the consolidation pattern with stop and reverse orders placed outside the converging trend lines which define the pattern to profit from the triangle breakout’s measured move. As more and more traders observe this pattern and establish positions, orders begin to accumulate in certain price level regions.Market makers know this very well, and a large player can simply identify a place where the market is not too far away from key stop loss levels placed just outside the converging trend lines. They then transact large amounts in order to pressure the market into triggering these accumulated stop loss orders.Furthermore, once the stops have been triggered, the large player merely has to quietly cover their position in order to show significant profits from their intentional manipulation of the forex market.Of course, a more insidious type of stop hunting can occur when a forex market maker is holding a large amount of stop-loss orders within a certain narrow price region. If the market approaches this region, they simply have to coax it a little further in order to trigger all of the stop orders they are holding and therefore profit from any trades they may have executed in advance of those order levels. Many retail forex traders do not understand that these forms of market manipulation are standard operating procedure for professional currency traders working at large financial institutions. Sometimes, they accuse their forex broker of hunting for stops when they are only quoting the market prices which have been manipulated by the larger players who have the ability to control the forex market in some circumstances simply by virtue of their impressive size.

Front Running Orders

Like with stop hunting, front running involves the intentional manipulation of the forex market in order to profit from held or anticipated orders that have been placed in the market. For example, consider the case of a forex market maker in AUDUSD holding a large buy order for Australian Dollars at 0.8500. As the market approaches the order level, the market maker will often front run the order by purchasing AUDUSD at levels just ahead of the order price which tends to keep the market from reaching the order level. Nevertheless, if the market does continue on to trade at the order level, the market maker simply takes a small loss and fills the client with what they purchased slightly higher.Also, if the market does not trade at the order level in sufficient size to allow the market maker to fill the order in its entirety, then they often simply sell the AUDUSD they did manage to purchase out at a profit when the market recovers due to the buying pressure. The disadvantage of front running from a client’s perspective is that the market maker trading ahead of the order may result in the order never being filled. Of course, the market maker still profits from having been allowed to work the order for their customer.

Order Slippage

The primary situation in which order slippage occurs is with the execution of stop-loss orders. Most stop-loss orders will be entered into the market in such a way that if a certain level trades, then this triggers the order which will then be executed at the best available market price as quickly as possible.What this means is that the stop order may not actually be executed at the level at which the stop loss was triggered. The difference between the stop loss trigger level and the executed price for the stop loss order is commonly known as order slippage. As if being stopped out were not bad enough, unscrupulous market makers and dealing desk staff also routinely exploit what they see as the opportunity to make money from their clients who entrust them with stop loss orders. They do this by increasing the order slippage on the rate of their stop-loss order and showing the client an even worse execution rate. By doing so, they make a few extra pips off of their clients.Order slippage rarely occurs on take profit orders, although it has been reported to have occurred with some questionable online retail forex brokers. What is more common, however, is that the take profit order is simply not filled if the market reverses sharply from that level and any amount executed on behalf of the client is simply closed out by the market maker at a profit for them, but not the client of course.

The head & shoulders everyone is talking about

Here's the 9 month daily S&P 500 chart:

The head and shoulders pattern that seems to be forming here has a neckline at 1040 which is 180 points below the top of the head at 1220. Using a simple measure rule (1040-180) I get a target of 840 upon a close below the neckline. Currently I don't have a position in the S&P directly but I do have a few IWM puts.

Sunday Rock Blog: (Sitting' on) the Dock of the Bay

Disclosure: As tempting as it is to try and play BP capitation by going long, I can't try catching this falling knife here. No position.

New Home Sales Breakdown, New All Time Low

Meredith Whitney on the Double Dip

Saturday Rock Blog: Israelites (Solars Bottomed?)

Sun Power (SPWRA) six month, daily:

First Solar (FSLR) three year, weekly:

Freddie Mac Notifies NYSE of Intention to Delist

MCLEAN, Va., June 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) today announced that the company has notified the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) of its intent to delist its common stock and the 20 listed classes of its preferred stock. This notice was made pursuant to a directive by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Freddie Mac's conservator, requiring Freddie Mac to delist its common and preferred securities from the NYSE. According to a press release by FHFA, the Acting Director of FHFA issued similar directives to both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20100616-903411.html?mod=wsjcrmain

Freddie Mac Starts Mortgage Relief For Gulf Coast Homeowners

Freddie Mac (FRE) said Thursday it was invoking a mortgage-relief policy for borrowers hurt by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, echoing similar moves by sister company Fannie Mae (FNM) a day earlier.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100617-711788.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

ATVI Inverted H&S Targets $12

Disclosure: I am long ATVI

Crude Oil's Bear Flag

Crude has created a picture perfect bear flag as seen in the weekly chart. Crude’s failed breakout and reversal during the week of May 7^th saw futures make a new high for the year of $87.15 before reversing to close down to $75.11. A 13.8% correction ($12) drop in one week. Following this reversal, oil continued its slide making a low of $64.24 retracing more than 38.2% of its move from $33.20 to $87.15. Crude has pushed off the lows set May 20^th and has tried to rally for the past 3 weeks, testing resistance and the top of the bear flag $76-$78.51. On the daily chart, crude is trying to break outside of a bearish pennant, this is seen as a false break out as long as prices fail to close above $76.00. An opportunity for bears to sell at these levels, risking a close above the highs, and looking to target the 50% retracement level of $60.00. Bulls should look for a close above $76.00 then $78.51 before attempting to position on the long side.

RISK DISCLOSURE: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS IS SUBSTANTIAL AND SUCH INVESTING IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS. AN INVESTOR COULD LOSE MORE THAN THE INITIAL INVESTMENT.

www.twitter.com/chicagostock

Saturday Rock Blog: Jesus Left Chicago (for BP spill)

Disclosure: I am long BP but have sold front month $33 strike calls on all of it to lock in profits.

Has Gold Double Topped?

Weekly chart above shows inverted h/s target 1240 completed.

Gold’s inverted h/s formation target to 1240 was completed during the week of May 14 after breaking out in April. Recently we have seen gold retest and reattempt to breach this target area by making a new record high of 1254.5. This new high was made during the Globex session on June 8^th and tested during the pit session with a high of 1253.0. The fact that the break above 1250 occurred during Globex gives the impression that the high was made to run stops thus hitting 1254.5. The market tried to test this high but failed during pit session trading and closed at 1244.7. Since then we have seen gold pull back to the 1223 level, as seen in the daily chart, the uptrend is still intact, and gold is in a strong bullish trend, however gold has set a double top. This double top will remain strong resistance and a profit taking opportunity unless bulls can reclaim and close above 1252.

RISK DISCLOSURE: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS IS SUBSTANTIAL AND SUCH INVESTING IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS. AN INVESTOR COULD LOSE MORE THAN THE INITIAL INVESTMENT.

Oil is looking bearish on multiple time frames

Here's a nine month daily:
I have a three year weekly below, if you view the whole move down beginning in 2008 as a simple ABC correction then you can come up with a target of about $20 on the ensuing leg C down for crude oil. For a more realistic, and useful perspective we should use the daily chart above and watch for a break of $70 to set up a target of $54. But it's always important to keep the "big picture" in mind:


Any way you slice it and allowing room for a replacement, crude looks to have topped for this cycle. Somehow the BP spill seems to have initiated a reversal that has really unfolded in recent weeks. This is a little counter intuitive to me because it seems like the spill raises the cost of production or in effect, reduces supply of crude. As supply is reduced shouldn't prices rise? Perhaps its just a coincidence that crude has fallen during the worst environmental disaster in modern history. I try and keep my focus on the charts and not try to guess how the market should react to some headline. Hope you are all enjoying this lovely summer weekend.


Disclosure: I own BP calls, no position in oil.

Saturday Rock Blog: Scarlet Begonias 1977

Here I've got an interesting ratio chart (UNG/USO) that I came across this afternoon. After seeing natural gas have a great rally the past few weeks, even as deflation ruled, I was curious how it fared compared with oil. Don't read too much into this, these are both some of the worst ETFs out there, USO underperforms oil and UNG can't keep up with natural gas. I'd be expecting that rising wedge (red) to break down soon and resume the longer term trend down (falling 50dma below falling 200 dma). So the trade would be to short UNG and go long USO. That being said, Oil looks like it could be forming a long term top here, I'll try and post an oil chart later or maybe CS will. UNG/USO six month daily, enjoy:

BP Divergences, Temporary Bottom?