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Painting The Tape

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July 2, 2009

Would you be willing to wager your life savings on pro-wrestling matches?  That is basically what you are doing when you invest in the stock market these days.  The game is being rigged.  If you are just a “retail investor” or “little guy”, you run the risk of having your investment in this “bear market rally” significantly diminish in the blink of an eye.  Regular readers of this blog (all four of them) know that this is one of my favorite subjects.  In my posting on May 21, I recalled feeling a little paranoid last December when I wrote this:

Do you care to hazard a guess as to what the next Wall Street scandal might be?  I have a pet theory concerning the almost-daily spate of “late-day rallies” in the equities markets.  I’ve discussed it with some knowledgeable investors.  I suspect that some of the bailout money squandered by Treasury Secretary Paulson has found its way into the hands of some miscreants who are using this money to manipulate the stock markets.  I have a hunch that their plan is to run up stock prices at the end of the day before those numbers have a chance to settle back down to the level where the market would normally have them.  The inflated “closing price” for the day is then perceived as the market value of the stock. This plan would be an effort to con investors into believing that the market has pulled out of its slump.  Eventually the victims would find themselves hosed once again at the next “market correction”.  I don’t believe that SEC Chairman Christopher Cox would likely uncover such a scam, given his track record.

After my last posting about this subject on May 21, I have continued to read quite a number of opinions by authoritative sources, echoing my belief that the stock market is being manipulated.  Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge has been quite diligent about exposing incidents of “tape painting”.  Some examples appear here and here.  In case you don’t know what is meant by “painting the tape”, here is a definition:

An illegal action by a group of market manipulators buying and/or selling a security among themselves to create artificial trading activity, which, when reported on the ticker tape, lures in unsuspecting investors as they perceive an unusual volume.

After causing a movement in the security, the manipulators hope to sell at a profit.

As one might expect, this activity is more easily accomplished on days when trading volume is low.  On June 11, Craig Brown had this to say about the subject on the Seeking Alpha website:

I have read some posts about some suspicions on perhaps some entities painting the tape. Volume has been light so it is something that could happen. We will see if these conspiracy theories play out.

Regular readers of Zero Hedge (it’s on my blogroll, at the right) had the opportunity to see some televised interviews during the past few days, when professionals have complained about “tape painting” in the equities markets.  On Monday, June 29, we saw on (of all places) CNBC, a discussion with Larry Levin, a futures trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.  I would consider CNBC the last place to criticize “pumping” of stock prices, since their commentary often seems designed to do just that.  Nevertheless, watch and listen to what Larry Levin had to say at 2:22 into this video clip.  He explains that “this market continues to be propped up by government intervention and manipulation” and he unequivocally accuses the Obama administration of acting to “prop this market up on a daily basis”.  Again, on Wednesday, July 1, visitors to the Zero Hedge website had the opportunity to see this June 30 clip from Bloomberg TV, wherein Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading noted that “you’ve got government forecasts that are intentionally misleading us, constantly”.    He went on to emphasize that the trading volume we see every day is “fictitious — it’s not real”.  He explained the potential hazards to retail investors caused by trading programs that “artificially inflate the prices” of stocks, although a “news event” could cause that program trading to abruptly reverse, erasing a valuable portion of the retail investors’ assets.

On June 24, Bret Rosenthal posted an article on the HedgeCo.net website, entitled:  “Coping With Government-Sponsored Market Manipulation”.  Here’s some of what he had to say:

We must not allow the government manipulations to cloud our judgement and sucker us into investments that have no hope of success over time.  Example:  the government-sponsored rally in the financials over the last 3+ months was clearly created to help the banking sector raise capital.  Again, if you wish to argue this point I suggest you go down to the water’s edge and scream at the tide.  Massive amounts of capital were raised through the secondary markets for financial companies in the last 30 days.  This is a simple fact. Now that this manipulation is complete and private capital has been sucked in where will the equity markets go?

The best advice for the retail investor, attempting to navigate through the current “bear market rally” was provided by Graham Summers, Senior Market Strategist at OmniSans Investment Research, in this July 1 posting at the Seeking Alpha website:

This rally has sucker punched the shorts countless times now, particularly when it comes to late-day market manipulation.  In a nutshell, every time stocks begin showing signs of breaking down, someone steps in, usually during the final 30 minutes of trading, to push the market back into positive territory.  So while economic fundamentals indicate we’ve come much too far too fast, it’s hard to make money trading based on this information.

*   *   *

To rephrase the above thoughts, stocks are currently trading where they should be a full year from now assuming that the economy turns around this fall.  This hardly makes a strong case for greater gains or more upward momentum.  But it’s hard to go short with the historic rig that is currently taking place in the market.

So my advice to anyone right now is to stay put.  This week is a wash anyhow due to it being short and due to performance gaming:  portfolio managers and institutional investors pushing stocks higher so they can close out the quarter with gains on their positions.  Indeed, yesterday’s market volume on the NYSE was the lowest we’ve seen since January 5, 2009.

So don’t open any new positions for now.  This week will be exceedingly choppy.  And with volume drying up to a trickle, there is potential for some violent swings as the big boys play around with their end of the quarter shenanigans.  You don’t want to be on the wrong side of one of those swings.

Meanwhile, I’ve been watching my investment in the SRS exchange-traded fund (which inversely tracks the IYR real estate index, at twice the magnitude) unwind during the past few days, erasing the nice profit I made just after getting into it.  Will I bail?  Nawww!  I’m waiting for that “news event” to turn things around.

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