Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge Spots Something Odd

Click for full size

---

Past 3 Months


From March, when the Rally Started

For the past few months, the market runup has almost entirely happened after hours, when the markets are closed.

In fact, as he (or they, Tyler Durden is a nom de plume) note, "All the upside since September 14th has come exclusively from after hours action." (emphasis original)

The money quote is:

The observant among you will immediately realize what this implies: not only is there no volume breadth to the recent move in the markets, but the actual push higher likely occurs on at most tens of thousands of futures contracts on a daily/weekly basis. The fact that literally several blocks of AH trades, used persistently, can move the market higher by 6% over the past 3 months, even as regular trading accounts for absolutely no part of this move, and that the SEC finds nothing troubling about this phenomenon, should be sufficiently telling about how "efficient" US markets have become.

If someone wanted to manipulate huge markets, they would do it at 3 in the morning, when the markets are small, and no one is watching for the last few months.

He thinks that it's the, "HFT brigade to come in and scalp their trillions of pennies while leaving the market unchanged, then at 4pm handing it off again to leveraged futures manipulation and dark pools," better known as, "That great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,^* Goldman Sachs."

^*Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.