Free Republic

Tony Greenwich, Connecticut isn’t immune to the fear and loathing that has been seen at townhall meetings across the country during the Congressional recess this summer. Wall Street traders and their wives showed up fully charged to debate health care reform last night... It was a bit of a mob scene. At one point Congressman Jim Himes, who represent Greenwich in Congress, went out to speak to the fifty or so people locked out of the meeting because of space restrictions. He was escorted by 8 armed police officers. The Congressman was “rattled” by questions ... At one point the...

<p>When everyone is thinking the same thing, it never happens, and what everyone is thinking right now is that when August is over, and we get down to business, this market's going to be in for some hurt.</p> <p>Folks have been saying it all summer, as bulls make mincemeat of bears without mercy. And now traders are starting to place their bets on the wheels coming off soon.</p>

Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks like Goldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed. High-frequency trading is one answer. High-frequency traders often confound other investors by issuing and then canceling orders almost simultaneously. Loopholes in market rules give high-speed investors an early glance at how others are trading. And their computers can essentially bully slower investors into giving up profits — and then disappear before anyone even knows they were there... It was July 15, and Intel, the computer chip giant, had reporting robust earnings...

Liberals are continuing their assault on investors, traders and the stock market. Peter DeFazio introduced the Let Wall Street Pay for Wall Street’s Bailout Act of 2009 bill in another utterly audacious attempt to stifle private enterprise. What is especially sad, the purpose of this bill as officially stated is to pay for TARP! TARP was shoved down our throats by the liberals, largely rejected by the GOP and force fed to the American public. This bill was introduced several weeks ago, but I am just learning about it now and someone that participates in the market find this to...

The corporate fat-cats may love the free money being tossed around in Obama's layaway plan for fiscal insolvency, but the guys on the floor who do the trading know better. This morning Rick Santelli led a mini-revolt on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He even went so far as to call for a new Tea Party type protest. It's VERY good to see these guys finding their backbone. Let's hope that, like usual, these guys are at the vanguard of public opinion. Those of us who appreciate capitalism and free markets need to be aggressive if we want...

SNIP At the first interruption of a steady stream of major, positive news designed to fix the U.S. economy and financial system, depression seems to spread from one trading desk to the next. The old black dog, what Winston Churchill called his depression, overshadows yesterday's excitement that tomorrow might be better than today. SNIP All traders, good and bad, know that it is very hard to stop a decline in asset prices. This is creating an eerie demand for hedges and puts that increase in value when stock prices decline. It is also turning conversations with traders into whirling talks...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The government charged an oil trading firm Thursday with manipulating oil prices in the first complaint to be announced since the regulators began a new investigation into wrongdoings in the energy markets. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused Optiver Holding, two of its subsidiaries and three employees with manipulation and attempted manipulation of crude oil, heating oil and gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "Optiver traders amassed large trading positions, then conducted trades in such a way to bully and hammer the markets," CFTC Acting Chairman Walt Lukken said at a press conference. "These...

Without a doubt, crude oil is the most important commodity on our planet. Hypothetically if it vanished overnight, our entire modern world would collapse. No goods could move without the oil-derived transportation fuels, so virtually all trade would implode. Unlike nearly every other major commodity, there is just no economically-viable substitute for oil. And the fundamentals driving oil’s secular bull are unparalleled in their strength. As Asia awakens and enters the modern era, global demand for oil is rising relentlessly. Despite today’s unprecedented prices, demand remains strong all over the world. And of course once oil is burned, it is...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- "Make no mistake about it," U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said Monday while chairing a meeting of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "Excessive speculation in commodity markets is having a devastating effect at the gas pump that is rippling through our entire economy." Here's a suggestion: The next time a Congressional committee wants to hold a hearing on how "speculators" are driving up oil prices, each committee member should first be required to demonstrate - preferably in their opening remarks - a basic understanding of the mechanics of futures trading. Even...

Raiders or Traders?A replica Viking vessel plying the North Sea this month is part of an effort to learn more about what the Norsemen were really up to By Andrew Curry Photographs by Carsten Snejbjerg Smithsonian magazine, July 2008Werner Karrasch / The Viking Ship Museum, Denmark From his bench toward the stern of the Sea Stallion From Glendalough, Erik Nielsen could see his crewmates' stricken faces peeping out of bright-red survival suits. A few feet behind him, the leather straps holding the ship's rudder to its side had snapped. The 98-foot vessel, a nearly $2.5 million replica of a thousand-year-old...

THERE is no pleasing oil traders. Or so King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia must think. No sooner had he pledged to pump more oil in a bid to lower the price, than the price began rising. On Tuesday June 24th it approached $138 a barrel. There were two main reasons for the market’s sceptical response. Saudi Arabia has only offered to boost its output by 200,000 barrels a day (b/d), about 0.2% of the world’s current consumption of 87m b/d. Worse, its leaders had told various foreign grandees about their plans in the preceding weeks, so oil traders had already...

The dramatic surge in oil prices—including a $16-per-barrel jump in just two days last week—has left Washington regulators scrambling to exert new oversight on futures trading in oil and other commodities. The U.S. regulatory agency's abrupt shift toward more rigorous oversight in the past two weeks also represents a stark example of how the pinch from high gasoline prices has changed the political landscape and made energy traders prime suspects in congressional inquiries. As recently as May 20, the U.S. commodities regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), insisted at a Senate hearing that speculation was not causing the...

German leaders are to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the latest spike in crude prices on manipulation by hedge funds. It is the most drastic proposal to date amid escalating calls from Europe, the US and Asia for controls on market forces, underscoring the profound shift in the political climate since the credit crunch began. India has already suspended futures trading of five commodities. Car lights are seen streaking past an oil rig extracting petroleum Speculators are split, with some betting that oil will fall Uwe Beckmeyer, transport chief for Germany's Social Democrats, said his...

French bank finds $7.14 billion fraud By EMMA VANDORE, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago French bank Societe Generale has uncovered a $7.14 billion fraud that, combined with a write-down from its subprime exposure, will force it to seek $8.02 billion in new capital, the bank said. France's second-largest bank by market value after BNP Paribas SA said it detected the fraud at its French markets division the weekend of Jan. 19. A trader at the futures desk had taken "massive fraudulent directional positions in 2007 and 2008 beyond his limited authority," SocGen said. The trader, who was not named,...

Can you imagine the rush of emotion you'd feel if your 8-year-old son, who had been kidnapped six months earlier, suddenly appeared at your door after you'd given up hope of ever seeing him again? In Pakistan just a fews days ago, I was repeatedly blessed to witness parents experience that thrill as we returned their abducted children. As the father in the above photos told us as he clung to his son, "It is a miracle." Indeed it was. Let me tell you how it happened. For those of you who haven't been following the unfolding story over the...

Traders Sports, one of the biggest gun dealers in the state, hopes a hearing in U.S. District Court next week will keep them in business. Traders has been under scrutiny for several years by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), which is trying to shut down the gun dealer. The ATF decided to revoke Traders gun permit on June 1. After an audit in 2003, the ATF claims that Traders can’t account for 1,767 weapons, and that guns sold at Traders turn up in crimes at an alarming rate. ATF spokeswoman Marti McKee said she couldn’t comment on...

The oil exporters of the Persian Gulf are flush with cash. Some of that money is going towards acquiring P&O, the British shipping concern, thus sparking off the heated controversy over foreign control of U.S. ports. This has led people to worry that Arab petrodollars might be scared away from the U.S. In fact, unlike during the last oil boom of the late 1970s, relatively little of the current Arab oil surplus has been directly invested in U.S. assets or even deposited in the international banking system. This time much of the oil money has remained at home, where a...

EVERETT, Wash., Feb. 3 - In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday. This is an excerpt, read the rest here: Click here for the rest.

A Christian Woman's little chat with Bin

Iranian agents flood into Iraq posing as pilgrims and traders By Philip Sherwell in Najaf and Jessica Berry (Filed: 28/09/2003) Iran has dispatched hundreds of agents posing as pilgrims and traders to Iraq to foment unrest in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala, and the lawless frontier areas. Teheran's hardline regime has also allowed extremist fighters from Ansar al-Islam, a terror faction with close links to al-Qa'eda, to cross back into Iraq from its territory to join the anti-American resistance. The Pentagon believes that Iran is building a bridgehead of activists inside Iraq, ready to destabilise the country if...

France yesterday felt the brunt of British rural revenge for its decision not to support the war on Iraq. A public meeting in the south Devon market town of Newton Abbot voted not to allow visiting traders from Normandy to sell their onions, cheeses, meats and wines at special French markets. The markets had become a success in many parts of Britain. With official support from farmers in the south-west, an open meeting held by Newton Abbot council voted against letting the overseas traders join in one of their oldest traditions. The community's right to hold markets and fairs dates...

Hussein Statue's Fall Slows Markets as Traders Stop to Cheer New York, April 9 (Bloomberg) -- The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in a Baghdad square brought trading in the world's most active futures contract to a standstill. ``The crowd went crazy,'' said John Brady, a Eurodollar- futures broker working for Man Financial Inc. at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. ``We all clapped, and there were some `Yahoos!' that went up in the air.'' Trading in the futures, a gauge of expectations about three- month lending rates, stopped for about 30 seconds when the 20-foot bronze monument came down, Brady said....

Market bear bites: Stock traders themselves losing jobs and benefits By Amy Baldwin / Associated Press Sunday, October 20, 2002 NEW YORK - Darren Adamchak's Wall Street career appeared to be accelerating even as the stock market swooned. Then, all of a sudden, it all turned bad. Four months after getting a remarkable bump up to a vice president's position at Deutsche Asset Management, Adamchak was let go in a round of layoffs. "I was promoted within a year, which is astronomical," the 30-year-old European portfolio analyst said. "I was doing a great job." Now, he has joined the growing...

Russia, Iraq May OK $40B Deal By JIM HEINTZ Associated Press Writer AP/Jassim Mohammed [22K] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOSCOW (AP) — Iraq and Russia are close to signing a $40 billion economic cooperation plan, Iraq's ambassador said Saturday, a deal that could put Moscow at odds with the United States as it considers a military attack against Baghdad. The statement by Ambassador Abbas Khalaf came amid indications that Russia, despite its strong support for the post-Sept. 11 antiterrorism coalition, is maintaining or improving ties with Iran and North Korea, which together with Iraq are the countries President Bush has labeled the ``axis...