~ Is a market crash possible here?
For so many years the stock markets has done just one thing: Go up. And then up some more; until everyone "knew" that the stock market could never go down again, and that the Fed would ride to the rescue if it ever started to go down.
Well, for better or worse, the Fed is now committed to ending QEternity here in October 2014. A decision they cannot easily undo.
And various markets around the globe are in trouble.
Today (10/13-14) the S&P 500 tumbled 31 points, the Dow lost 223 points, the Nasdaq lost 62 points and the Russell 200, surprisingly, lost the least percentage wise only closing down 4 points for a 0.38% loss. I say 'surprising' because it has been the biggest loser of late, so perhaps there's something important about the fact that it lost the least today.
A Failed Rescue
Last week was a pretty bad week for the markets, and it's not at all atypical to see mysterious futures buying on Sunday night after such a week. Somebody has a strong habit of stepping in and buying up futures — beginning at very odd hours when no major markets are open, volume is light, and shifting the market direction is (relatively) cheap.
Last night, beginning around 12:30 a.m., like clockwork, someone stepped in and began buying stock futures:
That's a pretty big rescue. 20 points on the S&P 500 is a very substantial move. What's astonishing to me is how it's done on such low volume that it barely registers on a chart scaled to show normal open market activity.
Who bought all of these futures? And why? There was no news or any other market-moving information of any substance on the wires when this buying started around 2:15 a.m.
But it was all for naught. And whoever bought those contracts had some ugly losses by the end of the day.
by cmartenson 
