TV Shows Watched -- Fauda

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Watched season one awhile back and have been meaning to blog about it... this is the best TV show I've seen in a *long* time ... it's from Israel and it's about an Israeli counter-terrorism unit ... old readers know I'm not a fan of War Porn or anything that glorifies the Security State, but this is really well-done drama. 

Most important of all it shows you how absurd the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is. These are people who can't tell each other apart on sight, and they speak one another's language so perfectly that they can't even hear an accent! The root of the problem here can't be competing creation myths, it has to be about resources (land, water, capital, etc.)

Anyway, it's on Netflix and I can't recommend it highly enough. Here are my selected screenshots with comments: 

New Rules

Added on by C. Maoxian.

This young Albanian! lady (born 1995) has several 100,000,000+listens songs on Spotify, but this is the only one that I liked ... it helps that I've adapted the lyrics to incorporate all my stock trading rules: ♪♫♬My trading rules, I flout 'em.♪♫♬

MY DEBUT ALBUM #DL1 IS OUT NOW!!! A massive thank you to everyone buying and streaming it 🌹🌹🌹 THANK YOU MY LOVES 🚀💖 https://wbr.ec/dualipa-album Follow me online: https://wbr.ec/website_dualipa https://wbr.ec/facebook_dualipa https://wbr.ec/twitter_dualipa https://wbr.ec/instagram_dualipa

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 71

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Episode 71 ... Eric Scott Hunsader (61:57)

  • Started programming in 1984
  • Programming then not offered in college, so he taught himself
  • Bought a book, C Primer Plus by Stephen Prata
  • Had written an oscillator in Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet 
  • Still uses C to this day
  • Used to read the Wall Street Journal, fascinated by that world
  • Traded for two and half years, made enough to live and buy more computers
  • Developed a love for writing software
  • Would always second-guess his trading system
  • Focused on writing code and quit trading
  • Used to use floppy disc to archive data
  • Sold that data online (long before the Internet)
  • 1989, Tom Joseph's [of Advanced GET fame] company called Trading Techniques was a data customer, hired Hunsader
  • Had real-time streaming charts using Compaq computer and a cellphone modem brick
  • CQG bought Trading Techniques and Hunsader worked for them
  • Three years later the Internet came along
  • Internet Revolution was obvious to him 
  • CQG cold to Hunsader's idea of internet-based real-time streaming charting application
  • Hunsader left and did it himself, wrote Java application called Livecharts, and desktop application called Qcharts
  • Quote.com saw Hunsader's programs and gave him a bunch of stock for the software
  • Within 18 months to two years went from 0 to 10,000 customers [and I was one of them!]
  • Lycos wanted to buy Quote.com out
  • Hunsader got Lycos stock in the buyout and he sold it all out in two weeks in December 1999 [great timing]
  • Then he founded Nanex in 2000
  • Wanted to design the ideal ticker plant, originally called it "Generation Five," with API on top of it
  • 25,000 hours later he was comfortable releasing it to first customer in 2004, called NxCore feed
  • Data Transmission Network (DTN) his partner then and still is
  • No advertising for his NxCore feed
  • Customers are hedge funds, institutional investors, high frequency traders, even the exchanges themselves
  • Working with the NxCore API is a joy 
  • An experienced programmer can quickly learn to get exactly what he wants from the NxCore feed
  • Other data feed providers normalize the data, NxCore doesn't
  • Data compression, data transmission and graphical interface all the important bits
  • "Serial latency cost" 
  • NxCore collects 20 billion data points per day, a petabyte raw
  • 1000 terabytes is a petabyte
  • Data is stored in triplicate in different locations
  • ARCA first place where he noticed penny up and down step patterns, someone testing something
  • Flash Crash the big event: May 6, 2010 ... SIP got crushed that afternoon
  • SEC couldn't even assemble the data to analyze the Flash Crash
  • Nanex could replay the entire day in real-time given their archived data
  • Analyzed the Flash Crash ... went down a rabbit hole from which he still hasn't emerged
  • ZeroHedge linked to the first analysis they posted about Flash Crash, then it all exploded
  • SIP (Security Information Processor) -- consolidated feed, should be the only feed but exchanges sell direct data feeds independently [the bastards]
  • US stock market has two data feeds, one is faster than the other
  • Reg NMS (PDF) brought high frequency trading into being
  • "Electronic trading brought down costs, high frequency trading brought down ethics"
  • High frequency trading is risk-free arbitrage, only possible since the exchanges sell direct data feeds
  • Exchanges collude with HFT by selling them direct data feed, which is faster
  • HFT has a wink-nod relationship with regulators, fined from time to time, no real change happens
  • HFT would be shut down if the regulators had any ethics
  • If there were a central limit order book, HFT wouldn't exist
  • Regulators wanted competition, multiple exchanges, tie it all together with SIP
  • HFT can front-run orders on one exchange and cancel their orders on another exchange given their faster feeds
  • When you talk about spreads, do you mean the spreads narrowest in a second or widest in a second? Can go from 1% to 1 cent in the space of second
  • "Quote-stuffing" is a term Hunsader coined ... Quote-spam
  • You slow down a data feed by quote-stuffing it ... more network traffic, like a tiny DDOS
  • Retail customers all working off the SIP ... HFT ahead of them
  • All about creating latency through quote-stuffing
  • Put noise into the system in order to slow it down
  • Must maintain latency tables ... must ping and test the limits all the time
  • HFT is theft and market-rigging ... visit the Nanex office for two hours and watch them at work in real-time
  • Everyone is a victim of HFT ... a billion paper cuts
  • You see things now, you think it's a bad tick, but it's actually 1000 trades going off, pennying down and back up in a half second
  • SEC says people shouldn't use stop orders anymore
  • Any retail investor who trades at the open is eaten alive
  • The regulators are corrupt, they get wined and dined by the firms they're going to work for when they leave the regulator
  • SEC gave Hunsader a $750,000 whistleblower award
  • The exchanges are the real culprits for selling a faster data feed for huge prices to HFT
  • Larry Leibowitz (brother of comedian Jon Stewart) is CTO at the NYSE
  • Leibowitz made fun of Hunsader as a conpiracy theorist on stage
  • Bill O'Brien has also argued with Hunsader; O'Brien a smooth talker on TV but just a soundbite bullshit artist, has no facts 
  • Exchanges are SROs (self-regulated organizations) ... means they can't be sued
  • Legal immunity exchanges enjoy has really destroyed things, the root of the problem
  • You need someone knowledgeable and with integrity at the SEC, then HFT will go away
  • Sarao being singled out like that [for the Flash Crash] is terrible
  • Hunsader offered to work at SEC for free, won't create any new rules -- offer met with dead silence
  • At least 500 trades within one second, spikes down and up, no net price change -- mini Flash Crashes happen all day long
  • Suckering people with these "poke plays" [as I call them] ... retail can't take advantage of these because they don't execute at all exchanges
  • These mini Flash Crashes never happened before 2007
  • Anyone with a standing stop order is going to get killed these days
  • Tight spreads being claimed by HFT are bogus given the constant mini Flash Crashes
  • People at IEX have integrity
  • All the exchanges' income comes from selling their faster data feeds to a select few
  • www.nanex.net 
  • Twitter: @nanexllc

Tramps Like Us

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Terrible video and audio quality, but this cover of an already great song makes it that much greater. Love that outfit too. 

They might not have been known as the greatest live band on earth, but they should be remembered for the raw energy they created. A wonderful tribute to a great artist.

TV Shows Watched -- Frontier

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Another Netflix original series ... six 45-minute episodes so not too great a time commitment ... and it wasn't terrible. I'm not usually big on "period" pieces, but the fur trade / history of the Hudson's Bay Company does interest me. One episode did have a gay porn vibe with the half-naked hero hung by his bound hands and tortured ... not that I've ever seen gay porn, but that's what I've been told it's like, by a friend, a very distant friend. 

My screencaps with comments below: 

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 62

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Episode 62 ... @chigrl (41:02) [recorded May 2016]

  • International relations major, Middle East focus
  • Sold medical supplies, "medical grade plastics," hated it, was living in Newport Beach
  • Quit job, moved to Chicago [what year was this?]
  • Knocked on every possible door
  • Begged for first job at a boiler room, later shut down by NFA
  • Nobody wanted to hire a woman
  • Making 200 calls a day trying to get Mom and Pop to part with 10 grand to trade options [laughing]
  • Her Dad was a commodities trader
  • Wanted to learn the industry from the inside out
  • Went from working as broker to working on trading floor
  • Clerked for Fed Funds trader
  • Moved to grains floor, was head of trading desk, when Fed Funds went to zero
  • Then moved to bonds floor
  • First ticket she ever wrote she wrote backwards, ended up being a 30K winner
  • Left the floor in 2012, started trading for prop firm, got funded
  • Being a prop trader forces you not to do "stupid shit" ... someone is watching you
  • She is an intraday, technical trader, but also has fundamental knowledge of oil market
  • She has a system, makes the same trade over and over again
  • Your worst enemy is your own head
  • If you have a system where you always take the trade, can take your head out of the equation 
  • Rotation levels, Fibonacci, volume profile, footprint -- these are what she uses
  • Fell in love with oil market, has traded for ten years straight
  • Doesn't trade crude during Asia hours ... too illiquid, a 50 lot can move the market
  • Crude is a "manic" market ... trades fast 
  • She's a market junkie ... 120 hour work week in front of the screens
  • After ten years of trading, you can "go with your gut" ... but not at the beginning
  • Government websites, esp. EIA, full of good information
  • Follow her Twitter stream since she tweets all the best information
  • [She has a smoker's laugh ... wonder if she smokes?]
  • Supply-demand drives the oil market, it's simple
  • Day traders trade what's in front of them, not the macro view
  • Twitter is invaluable, there are experienced traders on there, only dicks don't reply to your questions
  • Start with a mini contract
  • Have to find a system that works for you
  • Don't be afraid to lose money in the beginning
  • Successful traders don't care if you have two followers, they'll answer your questions
  • Key skill good traders have: patience, they wait for the market to come to them, they don't overtrade
  • She has a swing trading account and a day trading account, separately
  • Twitter: @chigrl

Trying To Turn My Black Nights Blue

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Andy Fairweather Low still crowing 50 years on ... great song, esp. for those who rely on the bottle to get through the night. 

Filmed for BBC Radio Scotland's The Jazz House at the CCA in Glasgow For more from BBC Music at Celtic Connections visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/celticconnections