The Market Structure Map
March 23, 2022
What’s 218 pages and heavily footnoted? No, not an Act of Congress. Federal laws are ten times longer or treated as unserious. It’s the new SEC proposed short-sale rule. I admit, I was excited. As the sort who read Tolstoy’s War and Peace in high...
March 16, 2022
Shocking. No other word for it. Yesterday as VIX volatility futures settled on an odd Tuesday, Barclays suspended two of the market’s biggest Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs), VXX and OIL. Let me explain what it means and why it’s a colossal market-structure deal. VXX is...
March 9, 2022
Here’s my grand unified theory on the world. We stopped following the rules. Not that humans don’t color outside the lines routinely. But in the last two years we jettisoned restraint. That gave rise to chaos in the stock market, imperialism in Ukraine. Here’s what...
March 2, 2022
The stock market last week posted its best day since 2020 and gave it back. Why? And why does your stock rise while another falls, and how do stocks trade today? I’m glad you asked! A week ago on Feb 23, the market moved clear...
February 23, 2022
I took a screenshot yesterday at 2:22pm, on Feb 22, 2022. Sign from God? Turning point? Hogwash? Those are better than most proffered reasons for the stock market’s moves. Lately it’s been delivering pain. Blame goes to Ukraine, where the Gross Domestic Product of about...
February 16, 2022
See this photo? Winter Carnival in Steamboat Springs. The Old West. Sort of. People ride shovels on snow down main street behind horses. Now. What the hell is happening in extended-hours trading? Could be a shovel ride. You might’ve forgotten with the pace of news...