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Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

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Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#21

Post by pvaldes »

ThePadawan wrote: post #5

Off-topic discussion below. This is the most vile dark pattern I have seen in recent times. On loading this page, there is an auto-playing, muted video. When you press its pause button, it is unmuted and keeps playing. Only when you press the pause button AGAIN does it actually stop playing. At some point when implementing that feature someone said "Sure, I'm OK with that". What went wrong there?

Messing with autoplaying videos (or fonts) in the most deliberate annoying way is not uncommon currently. My hypothese is that they want people to quit the web as fast as they can to increase the number of visits with the less expensive computers/bandwidth possible. Maybe also splitting the events in two or three (many short visits by the same people instead a longer one) to fake an increase in the counter of visits.

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#22

Post by fauigerzigerk »

lefstathiou wrote: post #18
taurath wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely a strange market. My worry is that the poor get basically no benefit from this (nor the tax cuts, nor the policies). They’ve gotten a 3% raise in the last year after several years of no unemployment and double digit growth for the stock market, and you can bet that’ll fall away after any downturn. It’s like we’ve created a perfect system to make the rich richer while not dealing with pesky inflation b…

I don’t pretend to believe I can predict the market... I suspect flight to quality is playing a role. If America is in a precarious situation, how would we position Europe (brexit, macro trade immigration), the Middle East (Iran, war), South America (Venezuela melt down) and Asia (trade war, militarization)? A lot of money is pouring into the US because it is relatively stable. Helps that US companies have favorable…

That's certainly part of it, but I think share buybacks are another major reason for the disproportionate rise of US markets. US corporations have bought more of their own shares than anyone else in recent years (Unfortunately I can't find the data right now). It explains a huge chunk of EPS growth.

Of course that wouldn't have been possible if corporate balance sheets hadn't been better in the US than elsewhere (especially in Europe). So it's still a sign of strength.

But it also raises a couple of questions: Is it sustainable? Why can't corporations find anything better to do with that money? Why is capital spending relatively muted while productivity growth has been subdued for years (both indicators have improved somewhat only very recently)?

I think low interest rates explain some of that. It makes sense to move funding from equity to debt in a low interest rate environment. But when buybacks run out of steam, I think we may well see a negative stock market reaction.

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#23

Post by dageshi »

Iv wrote: post #16
ThePadawan wrote: post #5

Off-topic discussion below. This is the most vile dark pattern I have seen in recent times. On loading this page, there is an auto-playing, muted video. When you press its pause button, it is unmuted and keeps playing. Only when you press the pause button AGAIN does it actually stop playing. At some point when implementing that feature someone said "Sure, I'm OK with that". What went wrong there?

Advertisement is a cancer. It is time we forbid it instead of making it fund every website in existence.

All you have to do is pay ALL the websites you visit and it'll go away...

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#24

Post by mruts »

The harder you think it’s going to be the market, the less you are going to trade. You need your confidence interval to reach a certain point before you are going to trade since you’lol have a negative expected value if you don’t have an edge (50/50)

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#25

Post by mruts »

dmix wrote: post #4

> And technological advancements have narrowed spreads in many areas of trading. > “Part of the problem is that it’s too late to hedge interest-rate volatility, there’s not currency volatility to hedge. Speculators need volatility to hedge and enter the market.” Sounds like a good thing to me. > New rules limited lenders’ ability and willingness to make principal bets with their own money Anyone know what regulation…

The rule they are talking about is the Volcker Rule. Prevents certain banks from proprietary trading. They are only allowed to buy and sell for the purpose of market making.

This, of course, is an incredibly stupid rule. There’s not really a big difference between market making and proprietary trading in the first place.

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#26

Post by dageshi »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #22
lefstathiou wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t pretend to believe I can predict the market... I suspect flight to quality is playing a role. If America is in a precarious situation, how would we position Europe (brexit, macro trade immigration), the Middle East (Iran, war), South America (Venezuela melt down) and Asia (trade war, militarization)? A lot of money is pouring into the US because it is relatively stable. Helps that US companies have favorable…

That's certainly part of it, but I think share buybacks are another major reason for the disproportionate rise of US markets. US corporations have bought more of their own shares than anyone else in recent years (Unfortunately I can't find the data right now). It explains a huge chunk of EPS growth. Of course that wouldn't have been possible if corporate balance sheets hadn't been better in the US than elsewhere (esp…

Perhaps this is what you get when when everyone learns the lessons of a truly severe recession/financial crisis?

People anticipate a recession because timing wise one should be due, they actually plan for it and reduce capital investment and just do buy backs instead?

So instead of a blowoff followed by recession, we sort of get a leveling off while everyone waits for the next shoe to drop?

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#27

Post by fauigerzigerk »

dageshi wrote: post #26
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's certainly part of it, but I think share buybacks are another major reason for the disproportionate rise of US markets. US corporations have bought more of their own shares than anyone else in recent years (Unfortunately I can't find the data right now). It explains a huge chunk of EPS growth. Of course that wouldn't have been possible if corporate balance sheets hadn't been better in the US than elsewhere (esp…

Perhaps this is what you get when when everyone learns the lessons of a truly severe recession/financial crisis? People anticipate a recession because timing wise one should be due, they actually plan for it and reduce capital investment and just do buy backs instead? So instead of a blowoff followed by recession, we sort of get a leveling off while everyone waits for the next shoe to drop?

I agree that this could explain modest capex. It also explains a lot of other things that are going on right now, such as the Fed planning interest rate cuts purely based on fear without any supporting data.

But if corporations expect a recession, why would they increase debt and weaken their balance sheets? Aren't they supposed to do the exact opposite?

Perhaps management compensation and shareholder activism explains some of it.

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#28

Post by jdjntnowln »

cm2187 wrote: post #12
lefstathiou wrote: post #9

A lot of our clients work in investment banks. There’s been a long (since the election) and growing narrative that the market will correct any second now... any second. Meanwhile the market has gone up up up. Part of that, I believe, is because most of these trading desks sit in one place - NYC, a super liberal anti trump environment - so it’s hard not to buy into the narrative and go risk off which means you would h…

We are back in a market manipulated by central banks. I call it “junkie mode”, you can tell because when there is bad economic news the market goes up, as it expects central banks to pour more liquidity/lower rates, lifting asset prices, like a junkie waiting for its fix. A healthy market goes down on bad economic news. I think you shouldn’t forget December last year, which was a pretty clear warning shot. The last 6…

Yeah, the market will act on its own when the news is both powerful enough and outside the market’s perception of the central bank’s expectations; i.e. the Fed is “stabilizing” which reduces competition and efficiency.

Moreover, it’s inequitable. The economic instability is what allow upward mobility. The Fed’s stability goal equates to a goal of preserving entrenched wealth from competitive pressures.

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#29

Post by ilaksh »

Dumb question: so is this about trading that the large banks arrange for their clients and get commission on? And if so, how is this problem different from MGM, Wynn, Aria complaining that Las Vegas is having a couple of slow months?

Why do we need the banks for the trading anyway? Aren't there ways to handle it with technology rather than paying whatever fees the cartels want?

Maybe I am a little bit cynical in general about this stuff.

Re: Wall Street’s Trading Desks Endure Worst First Half in a Decade

#30

Post by Iv »

kanokun wrote: post #19
Iv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisement is a cancer. It is time we forbid it instead of making it fund every website in existence.

It will end only when there is a viable alternative and as of now there is none.

There will be a viable alternative the day advertisement is gone.

There will be thousands of startups rushing to fill the gap.

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