"When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe." … Frederic Bastiat


Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God. – Archbishop Chaput

Trader Dan's Work is NOW AVAILABLE AT WWW.TRADERDAN.NET



Monday, April 30, 2012

FAT FINGER IN SILVER TOO?

Traders continue to chatter about the so-called "FAT FINGER" trade in gold that occurred early this morning, a trade which dropped the gold price $15 in minutes and consisted of an order of 7,500 contracts. Many seem to agree that it was a trade placed in error.

The problem is that we also witnessed a similar surge in the volume done in the nearby silver pit at the exact same moment. Note the time right after the 5:00 AM hour (Pacific time) on the following 5 minute chart and see how large the volume was compared to that for the remainder of the session.

No matter who did the trade, ( I remain of the opinion that this was a raid designed to knock the metal lower in hopes of creating a cascading running of downside sell stops), the fact is that it failed miserably. Besides, if it was a "FAT FINGER" ( a trade placed in error) how did the same fat finger knock silver down so sharply? Was that too a simple "error".

Note how both metals recovered the losses and added some additional gains even with the mining shares weaker and the broader equity markets lower. Even copper was lower today for a while before it too moved higher.

I still believe that traders are becoming more convinced that another round of QE is coming sooner rather than later. At least that is what is being reflected in the price action.


4 comments:

  1. Dan,

    Do you have a screen shot of the 7,500 GC trade? I am doing some volume comparisons and it would assist greatly. I will share the results with you if meaningful.

    SR

    ReplyDelete
  2. S Roche;

    I am posting a ONE MINUTE CHART of gold for you. total volume done was 7,501 contracts. I can do a tick chart but I am not sure that will be of any use to you.

    Dan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dan,

    The 1 min will be great. 7,501 x 100oz on Comex, some dump!

    SR

    ReplyDelete
  4. Couldn't it just be the algos responding to the drop in gold?

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.