Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Citigroup's Swamped (Musical Tribute)

Citigroup Shares Survive Brief Halt

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- A sharp swing to the downside caused shares of Citigroup(C) to trip circuit breakers put in place in the wake of the "flash crash" in early May on Tuesday.

...

Apparently a single trade was placed for 8,820 Citigroup shares at $3.3174, 12.7% lower than the previous trade of $3.80, Dow Jones says. The trade has since been canceled, authorities told Dow Jones.


A single $30,000 trade is all it takes to swamp Citigroup these days? Doesn't that just inspire confidence. It's the kind of unemployed "fat finger" that can work out of a mother's basement on the hopes of getting rich as a day trader.

I'm picturing all those computer program trading algorithms factoring in this new normal. $30,000 is certainly a cheap way to influence a stock's price, especially one that trades roughly 800 million shares per day such as
Citigroup.



When you've bought on credit
When you've bought on credit
When you've bought on credit
When you've bought on credit
Ooohhh noooo

Citigroup's flying high above
With those gains that we can't quite realize {realize}

Citigroup? who cares? {Citigroup? who cares?}
As it turns around {as it turns around}
And we know that it descends down carefree

It's just another day
The shame's still here
Hard to believe
That it's just been sold, just been sold, just been sold

Citigroup can't refuel our debts
Scary shadows of our past are alive {alive}

Citigroup? who cares? {Citigroup? who cares?}
As it turns around {as it turns around}
And we know that it descends for a while

Just another day
The shame's still here
It's hard to believe
That it's just been sold again

It's just a tragedy
It bleeds cash flow
Hard to believe
That it's just been sold

When you've bought on credit
When you've bought on credit
When you've bought on credit
When you've bought on credit
Ooohhh noooo

Just another day
The shame's still here
It's hard to believe
That it's just been sold again

It's just a tragedy
It bleeds cash flow
It's hard to believe
That it's just been sold, just been sold, just been sold

2 comments:

  1. "A single $30,000 trade is all it takes to swamp Citigroup these days? Doesn't that just inspire confidence."

    Well, frankly, it should inspire law suits.

    So now, a single trade can, without warning, set off automated sell-stops in countless brokerage accounts, generating a bevy of commission fee profits for brokerages, trashing individual investors portfolios, and simply be canceled.

    Super. I'm thinking we all need to pile in to TDAmeritrade stock. They've got a great thing going here.

    Personally I don't use or recommend automated sell-stops but I'm not going to fault someone who does. Unless we see more examples of this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. G.H.,

    So you found no great comfort in...

    The trade has since been canceled, authorities told Dow Jones.

    For what it is worth, me either.

    It's kind of like being at an auction house and stating that you were just kidding if you actually won the bid.

    ReplyDelete