Where For Art Thou, GS?

"They" let me down yesterday. I will certainly have to brush up on my soothsaying skills I guess.

The employment numbers and the market reaction (a 2 standard deviation move down) must raise the specter of a continuation of the bear market. Most of the credible experts (those that predicted the whole mess in the first place) are incredulous at the up move since March and believe the market should be much lower.

I agree. So when where will the market be manipulated next?

For me, I couldn't give a crap, just don't get there too fast so I can hedge my deltas. VIX ticked up a couple of %, a solid, but not fearful move, so I'm not worried about fast markets... yet, but I don't think we've seen the last of fast down markets.

Disclaimer: I'm delta neutral on the indices.

I'm Buying

OK now that I'm in full conspiracy theory mode, my prediction for today is that GS and MS will have a busy day in the SP pits.

A comment in response to Marketwatch's pre-non farm payrolls numbers:

MarketWatch - why do you pass on this gobbledegook? You guys know as well as all of us that the U.S. government "statistics" are about as dependable as a 2 dollar watch.

...and there are dozens along the same lines.

The payroll numbers will be dreadful, but folk will suspect the government is lying and things are actually much worse (Noooo - who'd believe that?). Folks will realise the bobbleheads optimism is totally misplaced and flog all their stocks the market will open sharply down.

GS & MS will start buying with their ears pinned back for some mysterious account, the market will finish green, Goldilocks will make another cameo appearance, folks will be conned into believing all is well and a return to the upward grind will ensue.

Disclaimer: I'm short gamma on the indices with a little upside skew.

OK I've let my cynicism out for a run, back to normal programming shortly.

Update: As expected, the #s were woeful, now all I need for soothsayer status is for the SP500 to be green by day's end.

Market Manipulated! Levin Lets The Cat Out Of The Bag!

Original Content Sigma Options

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Via ZeroHedge, here is a jawdropping video where Larry Levin let's the cat out of the bag about gu'mint manipulation.

"Larry Levin is a professional futures trader. He has been in and around the S&P 500 futures pit at the largest futures exchange in the world; the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), for almost 20 years.

Larry has been trading his own account or company's proprietary accounts since 1993, trading an average of 2500-3000 E-mini S&P futures contracts a day."

The meaty bit starts at about 2 minutes in.