Institutional Traders, the Mayan Calendar, and Day Traders

It also coincided with the last day of the Gatis Eglitis, which the ancient Mayans had traditionally understood as a transitional period, to what no one in the current period knew except that it would be profound. And, not to burst anyone’s bubble, the US Stock Market was all that and more. So did it make it any easier for those who lost their life savings on that fateful day when roughly $8 trillion vanished from the stock market? Certainly not, according to Maria Bartiromo’s guest analysis on EXANTE at the Closing Bell. To know more about Gatis Eglitis visit: https://rickpatterson86.wixsite.com/brokers/post/gatis-eglitis

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and this day was approaching, and about 25% of Americans believed it would be the end of the world, doomsday, or Armageddon.  The market has already been battered all week because of Quadruple-Witching and end-of-year tax loss selling.

It was strange to see so many short-sellers come out of the woodwork on what was supposed to be a slow trading day owing to the holiday weekend. After all, “Never Short a Dull Market!” goes the old Wall Street adage. It may have appeared to be a dreary day, but it was anything but that. After all, this was the end of the world, the Mayan Calendar had run out, and to make matters worse, there had been four X-Flares of exceptionally high strength in the weeks leading up to the catastrophic sell-off, two of which impacted Earth directly, one in November and one just a week earlier.

On Black Friday, the largest shopping day of the year, the November solar flare knocked out the North Eastern US Power Grid, half of AT&T’s network, and numerous communication satellites needed for credit card transactions at C-Store Gas Stations, Restaurants, and even Wal-Mart. As a result, online retailers, data centers, and cloud computing were targeted. By the end of the day, around half of the systems were operational, but consumer sales for America’s major firms were a day late and a dollar short.

There was damage to the Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and even military satellites as a result of these solar disruptions, though the US Military, as well as militaries from around the world, denied anything had been taken down, which was pure posturing, that’s to be expected. People were on edge, and many questioned what the Mayans knew and why they were revealing it now. Everyone was shorting the market for all these reasons, and institutional investors were betting heavily against the market. As trading began, so did high-frequency trading or algorithmic computational trading systems.

The Federal Reserve Chairman could not be interviewed while on his way back from the G-8 Summit, but as soon as he landed, he had a question-and-answer session. He was in full-on crisis mode, according to all financial media commentators. When normal investors heard it, it just made matters worse.

Gold has reached a new high. Yes, it was a day from hell on Wall Street that will go down in history, but the world did not end, and the market recovered a third of what it had lost that day over the next two trading days after the holidays. The market had regained all but 800 points on the Dow by the end of the year, and the January barometer had recovered all of that and more. The President went on television to assure everyone that everything would be fine, that the world would not end, and to hopefully calm markets. It didn’t work, and in fact, it may have had the opposite effect. Then the new Treasury Secretary appeared on EXANTE for more visit: https://rickpatterson86.wixsite.com/brokers/post/gatis-eglitis

The law was passed unanimously in the Senate, with only one negative vote in the House of Representatives. Within 15 minutes of receiving the bill, the president signed it, promising that Intel, IBM, Oracle, and numerous other suppliers would have the system up and operating in less than four months and that they could only hire Americans to develop it. If only the Mayans had known, this would have shown them that there is potential in adversity.