Comment Text:
The following comment by an analyst at FMX on the Afternoon Gold Fix, Feb 25, 2011illustrates the state of the precious metals futures market:
Editorial comment: It’s becoming increasingly annoying watching dealers buy call and sell puts the day before we rally $20, and then the next day buy put and sell call before we drop $20. Yesterday’s sell off from the 1415 area seemed almost orchestrated. At the very least, the futures selling came in during the thinnest trading hours. While exchanges herald the benefits of electronic trading there is one thing wrong with it. Electronic trading minimizes the information leakage associated with using brokers, for sure, but it is also allows oligarchic organizations to anonymously manage price movement while hiding behind digital displays. We won’t use the word manipulate, in part because of our libertarian bent, but it’s getting ridiculous. Where there used to be 50 5-lot thieves on the floor now there are five Too-Big-To-Fail banks with infinite fed-sponsored balance sheets doing whatever they please. The idiot locals on the floor, fragmented as they were, served to keep the big banks in check because there was transparency of price and to a large extent, the players were known. This doesn’t exist anymore and we don’t see an end to it. Instead of thinning the forest for the trees, technology, regulatory and economic factors have killed the saplings and destroyed market diversity. This translates to a narrow and deep liquidity pool in trading venues; god forbid if one of them fails.
Please note the comment re "regulatory...factors have killed the saplings and destroyed market diversity."
I would encourage you to take the necessary steps to bring back the market diversity that is being compromised..
Yours truly,
Martin Suo
