Tyler writes;
I enjoy your work, SDA is a great place to stop by.
I am looking for reading material for the summer. Do you have a list that you could recommend? May be you have had a post in the past?
That’s pretty open ended, but I thought I’d open it up to our readers – feel free to share your summer book recommendations in the comments.
In tonight’s Tips music, from a 1956 recording session in New York, noted English wit Noël Coward chronicles the behaviour of the restless, self-pleasuring adults of his milieu who, in the course of behaving like overgrown children, neglect to ask themselves the troubling and inescapable question: What’s Going to Happen to the Tots?.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Two years after the Great Recession officially ended, job prospects for young Americans remain historically grim. More than 17 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds who are looking for work can’t find a job, a rate that is close to a 30-year high. The employment-to-population ratio for that demographic—the percentage of young people who are working—has plunged to 45 percent. That’s the lowest level since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 1948.
“The president has directed us to take action to fight these cartels,” Ogden begins, “and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the Administration’s comprehensive plan.”
Another Zero Hedge warning about High Frequency Trading;
Over the past 2 years, and culminating with the Flash Crash it became all too clear that HFT is nothing but a parasitic phenomenon which churns volume in stocks providing the best liquidity rebates, while pretending to be adding liquidity. Recently the best we can do is to provide glaring examples of HFT algos gone wrong in hopes that some regulator somewhere will finally take the long overdue step to establish a minimum bid/ask time delay and thus put virtually the entire HFT frontrunning math Ph.D. crew out of business. The latest development in the ongoing saga against these parasites comes from none other than the Bank of England’s Andrew Haldane who prepared a speech to the International Economic Association Sixteenth World Congress in Beijing China, titled “The race to zero”(pdf) which essentially recaps the hundreds if not thousands of posts we have written on the matter of risks posed by High Frequency Trading, and blasts the concept, as well as the toothless captured regulators who continue to exist in their zombie, porn-addicted state, and refuse to move one finger to finally end this next Flash Crash-in-waiting.
Read the whole thing. Via Melinda Romanoff, who clarifies;
Re: “churns volume in stocks”. There are very few trades, just orders, which 99.999999% don’t get filled. Entered and cancelled, entered and cancelled, as fast as the algo can go. Also, they do this not at say, $37.00 bid at $37.02 offered, where you and I can do business, but at $37.00001 bid, offered at $37.02. Mathematically, that’s a lot of room. At millions of orders a second, going from $37.00001 to $37.00002 and so on, right up to $37.01 and back to $37.00001, you can then visualize how it might look like a pyramid signal. Any real order disturbs that signal, and the algo steps in front of the order to steal the penny first.
The actual volume traded on the exchanges is stupendously low, given the rise of stock prices. If these were actual trades, the volume would be in the trillions, every day. These bots ARE the market now, by and large.
More…
On June 30th, Chicago Purchasing Managers’ Index, now owned by the NYSE, was flashed to select customers before the public release. It showed up in the HFT flows before the release. There are now more tiers to trading clarity, and they are basically charging firms to steal, with sanction. Here’s that story.
Then there’s the current administration’s fee for business model showing up in the IEA/SPR crude release of last week, the release will purportedly not go to refiners but to commodity trading operations, say, like some large banks, who will arb it to best use. Story: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/iea-replaces-one-crude-supply-limiting-cartel-opec-another-tbtf-banks
I am fully aware these are probably biased pieces, but this display of raw theft rips the mask off any interest in “the customer”.
And there’s nobody to do anything about it.
Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes. (h/t Marina)
EBD here, back in the saddle again. In tonight’s Tips music Gene Autry protégé Jimmy Wakely, one of filmdom’s last singing cowboys, joins Foy Willing’s Riders of the Purple Sage in a performance of Happy Day. Giddy up!
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
LA Times, June 28th – U.S. backs Christine Lagarde, former Chicago lawyer for IMF chief
CNBC, July 10th – IMF chief calls on US to raise borrowing limit
A Kelowna based videographer named Joe Vass, and his partner Cindy, were recently traveling through the U.S. when he captured a whole lot of scenes of “America at Work”. I found Joe’s insightful narrative to be most interesting. Too bad more politicians, including Canadian ones, aren’t able to talk so succinctly about our energy needs in this way.
Kai Nagata was CTV’s 24 year-old Bureau Chief in Quebec City. He was a rising media star. But he suddenly quit and provided a lengthy explanation why. h/t chutzpahticular
If you have a few minutes, read his entire piece and share your thoughts in the comments.
From the fringes of science, a claim from the Met Office (UK) that the big glowing ball in the sky may have some effect on climate;
“We now believe that [the solar cycle] accounts for 50 per cent of the variability from year to year,” says Scaife. With solar physicists predicting a long-term reduction in the intensity of the solar cycle – and possibly its complete disappearance for a few decades, as happened during the so-called Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 – this could be an ominous signal for icy winters ahead…
Though not nearly as much as your incandescent bulbs.
…despite global warming.
Five years after Canada became a country, on July 9, 1872, the doughnut cutter was patented by John Blondel of Thomaston, Maine. In celebration of the delightful dessert, here’s a special “Doughnut Burger” from the Calgary Stampede. If you’re still hungry after seeing that, here’s a little something from the Simpsons on the topic. On a more serious note, here’s an instructional video on making doughnuts.
Your tastiest Reader Tips are welcome, as always, in the comments.
Santelli on the debt ceiling.
Via Drudge
You missed a spot.
Here is the world’s most powerful intergovernmental institution essentially arguing for the destruction of the global economy, enforced rationing, Marxist wealth redistribution, greater regulation, the erosion of property rights and global governance by a new world order of technocrats and bureacrats. And being so upfront about it they actually issue press releases, telling us what they’re planning to do and encouraging us to write about it.
h/t loki
On Question Time last night, Hugh Grant unwittingly revealed the double standards that underpin the anti-Murdoch moral crusade. Grant, who despite his support for those medieval legal writs known as superinjunctions has become a hero of the Twitterati and the liberal media for his criticisms of the Murdoch Empire, said: “I’m not for regulating the proper press, the broadsheet press. But it is insane that the tabloid press is left unregulated.”
And there you have it, in two sentences, the sentiment that is ultimately motoring liberal campaigners’ agitation against low-rent newspapers: a belief that there should be one law for “them” and another law for “us”. They must have a “regulatory body watching them”, as Grant put it, whereas the “proper press” can be trusted to keep its house in order without having the state’s snout poking around…
Given that much of the British “quality press” ain’t exactly over-concerned any longer with serious reporting or journalism (cf. Horrible Heather in The Guardian), this attitude may in reality be close to a distinction without a difference.
Hamas Declares War on…Male Hairstylists
The evidence suggests that Agent Terry’s death was financed by the president’s stimulus package with the full knowledge and support of Attorney General Holder.
He must go to bed every night and thank God he didn’t run as a Republican, or this could have been a scandal.
The morning after: a question for Ann Althouse.
As we waited at ringside for the terrier group to go in, I glanced over at the Welsh terrier and his handler kneeling a scant 2 feet away.
We all knew the Welsh well, watched him grow from the puppy classes to become a top winner. Over the year, the black and tan dog had filled out, the coat had filled in, and he was now every inch a top show dog, perfectly trained, every hair in place.
His handler was aware that I’d seen “Joey” at his earliest – and most unattractive – stage. And we both knew that we both knew what was under the carefully coiffed coat.
As our competitive relationship at the time was (to put it kindly) combative – I was pleasantly surprised when he invited my opinion.
“He’s come a long way, eh?”
“Much better than he looked as a puppy.”
“Yeah, he’s really come around.”
“Much better.”
“Thanks.”
I gave the compliment a few seconds to sink in.
Like you do with meat tenderizer.
“In fact, Doug, I’d say that Welsh of yours deserves his own theme song.”
“Oh, what now?“
“Three Dressed Up As A Nine“.
Have a great weekend, everyone – your tips in the comments.