ROTFLMAO!!!!
Share your sentiments exactly, I do. It used to at least be difficult to put your finger on but now it is rather obvious how the bot algorithms work in the markets these days. The generic template used is to slowly grind higher with each day normal volume but only +0.10% to +0.30% moves for the market overall. This lasts for weeks, sometimes months as volatility is crushed so to clean out anyone who is short the market and to make it that much more difficult for longs to really maximize potential gains; the gains are by inches over a long long period of time so chances are investors get out too early but if they wait too long then it tanks in a matter of days and months of gains are erased. Then on the slightest news or worries, jitters or woes, the crank up the volume and reverse the bots so that the markets tank in a matter of days, volatility sky rockets, stop loss orders are chewed up like candy and no matter what stock it is it goes down by 5% to 10% daily. This way, they know they are the only ones who have shorted on the top and on the way down they trap all the longs who are merely holding, erasing the gains that came along over weeks and weeks period of time. Most capitulate because of margin requirements and there is forced selling, while they press their shorts. Then everyone becomes bearish so they begin shorting but that is exactly when they turn around and cover their shorts so it traps new shorts. Then the script continues with medium to lowered volatility with daily price swings of the markets up or down about 1%. Then as the following weeks move along there is continuing negative sentiment and they all talk about the advantages of dividend paying stocks and the safety of bonds and cash, when really all of the dividend stocks have been pounded and fallen so much on a percentage basis it makes the dividend a worthless booby prize. Finally the last phase is to string out any of whom attempted to just ride out the correction and the market just is stagnate with very low volume and slowly falling volatility but price moves that go nowhere for weeks, +0.10% days then -0.20% then +0.40% then -0.30% days, etc, for a long long time, until finally they feel satisfied that no one survived the last wave of market corrections and that their gains are locked in. Then they begin placing bets again but very slowly and the market again goes back to phase 1 with a slow grind higher. Just look at the chart of the S&P for the last few years, the chart exactly shows this story, rinse/repeat. All the while as most retail traders and investors have seen its a rigged game, they leave in droves, which has made the game more difficult for hedge firms and the big boys, so they have started to up their ante in the cheating game, grasping harder and more viciously for gains; anywhere they can get them, at any cost and by any means necessary. All the while the SEC sits on their hands and not only goes after highly visible cases, like Madoff and now NITE, leaving all of the small fish fry to fend for themselves.
It was only a matter of time before the people collectively became disgusted enough about the entire corrupt system before pressure was brought to bear on the entrenched cronies stinking up the whole market. Perhaps over time we will see market regulations and fair and balanced enforcement of existing regulation so as to avert events like the epic naked short selling taking down some of the banks in the financial collapse of 2009, the flash crash, and now this NITE fiasco along with the constant pump and dump theme of the entire market at large. Time will tell.
May the force be with you.
