Juggling Dynamite

Over the past 8 years, free markets have increasingly been over run by inside traders, price riggers and predatory high frequency machines, in the process, legitimate investors have steadily withdrawn and the volume of shares traded has plunged. Fewer participants mean those buying have had a magnified ability to move prices up, but it also means there have been less and less willing participants with each passing year. Those who have gone along for the ride are taking victory laps and calling it brilliance, but the trick will be trying to find buyers when they look to cash out winnings. This video captures the demise of free markets and the lack of liquidity that today stalks ‘players’ at the table.

Average Trade Size (Shares per Trade) for all NMS Stocks at 10 minute intervals between 9:30 (open) to 16:00 (close) from 2006 through November 12, 2014. Here is a direct video link.

As the US Congress pushes for an approval vote for the highly controversial Keystone pipeline this week, ironically the project may no longer be economically viable.

With West Texas crude today hovering just over $74 a barrel–down 50% since 2008, and 30% since just June–the price is already well below the estimated break even costs cited by Keystone proponents.  See:  Economics no longer make Keystone pipeline viable

“The so-called “heavy oil” extracted from sand in Alberta, which the proposed pipeline would carry to Nebraska, en route to refineries on the Gulf Coast, will cost between $85 and $110 to produce, depending on which drilling technology is used, according to a report in July by the Canadian Energy Research Institute, a nonprofit whose work is often cited by Keystone proponents.”

With the US dollar still surging and the global economy slowing, price support for oil may be much lower still as marked below.

The bank executives claim they are talent worthy of the highest pay packages in the world. But they are accountable for none of the downside that their ‘talents’ create. Not only are they not held accountable for crimes, but we the taxpayers cover their losses. Fantastic gig for them; incredibly abusive of all of us.

Paul Mason’s raw thoughts on the news – and why he’s sick of the corner of the City of London next to RBS’s headquarters. Here is a direct video link.