The Veneziani Journal

There were 2.5 million job openings on the last business day of...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:59:40 -0500

There were 2.5 million job openings on the last business day of October 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job openings rate was unchanged over the month at 1.9 percent. The openings rate has held relatively steady since March 2009. The hires rate (3.0 percent) and the separations rate (3.2 percent) were essentially unchanged and remained low.

Now you know why it’s hard as shit to get a job here.

Hi there! My name is Sanford Weill but you can call me...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:51:17 -0500

Hi there! My name is Sanford Weill but you can call me Sandy.

There’s been a lot of rumors floating around this afternoon about a “mysterious white powder” floating around American Express’ office. Reports claim it could be anthrax. Well I’m here to tell you that it sure as hell is anthrax and you can bet your ass I put it there.

You see, after I got forced out of becoming Amex CEO in the Shearson deal from decades past, I never recovered. Sure, I created banking empire/uber-failure Citigroup, but it never made up for the betrayal I felt from American Express. So fuck them. They deserve it. Those fuckers couldn’t run a business if their balance sheet was entirely liquid and their mother’s legs are spread.

Anyways, enjoy, fuckers! See you in hell over MY DEAD BODY.

Sincerely,

Fuck You a.k.a. Sanford I. Weill*

*Not actually written by Sandy Weill, just in case that old bastard tries to sue me for libel!

Who Got Algo'd: December 10th, 2009

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:19:10 -0500

Welcome to Who Got Algo’d, a new feature on The Veneziani Journal that identifies companies whose stocks were messed with by use of algorithmic trading and high-frequency trading methods (read: computers + latency).

A rather slow day in terms of what I happened to notice, but plenty of scandal to go around nonetheless. Volume was massive on a few stocks, so let’s investigate!

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS):

Average Daily Volume: 9.7m
Today’s Volume: 11.9m
Percentage Change / Closing Price: 0.17% / 166.73
Comments: Lots of selling on Goldman Sachs today. Big sell orders that only a large shareholder/institutional investor could pull off. Perhaps the algorithms kept the parabolic pace going all day, but the big sell off points could have been chosen by computer models. Either way, massive volume on an expensive, market-leading stock is nothing to ignore.

United States Natural Gas (UNG):

Average Daily Volume: 30.3m
Today’s Volume: 59.1m
Percentage Change / Closing Price: 7.03% / 9.75
Comments: Any idiot can see that the high amount of volume with UNG was created between 10am and 11am. Look at this massive set of weaved buying patterns with incredible volume reaching into the 3 million plus range. I mean FUCK, just look at that goddamned chart! If that’s not a huge, algo-oriented spike, I don’t know what the fuck is.

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Questions? Comments? Nominees? Email us at vveneziani@gmail.com and let us know!

The Best Story About A Trader You'll Read This Month

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:19:17 -0500

From The Danza Tap:

A not so sweet recap of a Beaver Creek incident this weekend.

A sales trader from a small boutique in Philly got blown off by one of his “monster prospects”, basically the prospect told him, “Nice to see you, thanks for coming out” “No i don’t want to go skiing with you, but thanks” This obviously put him in a bad mood and pushed him to really drink til he lost control of his senses and bodily functions.

Said sales trader proceeds to mix Wine, Bourbon and beer all the while housing Scallops and every other appetizer in sight. (He started with a Meat Lovers pizza covered in Hot peppers).

A few more hours of drinking and he was in that position where he didn’t want to leave the party but was definitely feeling some anxiety in his GI tract.

He goes to the bathroom at the Park Hyatt, and says it’s “too nice to destroy, I’ll hold it”….Get to the after party at the Billiards Room, the typical scene…120 people crowded around a small rollaway bar….he tries to alleviate the pressure by letting out a little gas. He sharts!

Is so drunk he doesn’t want to go back to his room. Walks to the bathroom, wipes and puts toilet paper in his boxers..comes back to the bar. Let’s a little trickle out again, and the stench starts to permeate the fucking room.

It’s a convention and the entire bar area gets cleared out!! 3 degrees outside and a good 25 people go outside to escape the roving green cloud, and another 45 people just walk out of the room.

One of my guys is trying to close a girl from Goldman, and she thinks he did it. He is not a small guy, and doesn’t appreciate being cock-blocked by a drunk fat guys ass.

To alleviate the pending violence we get [Mr. Shitty] back to the Charter and in his room so he can sleep it off. And he ends up taking what must have been the mother of all shits.

He clogged the toilet, was too drunk to realize he needed to pull up the ball in the back of the tank and floods his bathroom. He is now trying to dry the puddles with every towel in his room. All the while he has forgotten to open the flu on his fireplace and smoke is pouring into his room.

Longer story short…Fire company is called out to the hotel, alarms are going off, and people on the bottom floor of The Charter in Building 2 had to be relocated due to the water leaking.

If you need confirmation, and aren’t mentioning names, ask if anyone was relocated out of the Charter for a false fire and/or cleared out of the billiards room party for stench at the bar.

::nervous laughter::

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:38:54 -0500

::nervous laughter::

NYPD Spokesman: We Haven't Seen Any Surge In Goldman Gun Permits

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:43:13 -0500

So originally, the entire world had reported that Goldman Sachs employees had begun to arm themselves to the teeth over public outcry.

Not so! Or at least according to an NYPD spokesperson:

Zerohedge: So remember that Bloomberg story about how Goldmanites were arming themselves to resist a popular uprising? You know, the one that some people took (incorrectly) to mean that some sort of secret connection enabled Goldman employees to get concealed carry permits in New York City when almost no one else could? We looked at it pretty carefully here on Zero Hedge and wondered if the Goldman bashing hadn’t gone a bit far. Well, the story turns out to look pretty much like bullshit.

“We haven’t seen a surge of applications of any kind for Goldman Sachs employees,” said [NYPD spokesman Paul J.] Browne.

We wouldn’t go so far as to accuse the author, Ms. Schroeder, of outright fabrication, but it was pretty clear that she was out of her depth when it came to the subject matter.

Here’s Barry Ritholtz (of The Big Picture) flipping the...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:50:13 -0500

Here’s Barry Ritholtz (of The Big Picture) flipping the fuck out at a commenter. Hilarious stuff.

(via TBI)

Video of my appearance on CNBC’s Kudlow Report talking...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:36:24 -0500

Video of my appearance on CNBC’s Kudlow Report talking about retail sales and the dollar.

Who Got Algo'd: December 9th, 2009

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:23:50 -0500

Today was ridiculous. Volatile markets aside, gold continues its plunge to $1100/oz and oil continues to fall as well. But enough talk, let’s get to today’s picks:

RealNetworks Inc (RNWK):

Average Daily Volume: 758k
Today’s Volume: 4m
Percentage Change / Closing Price: 15.65% / 3.99
Comments: So JP Morgan, for whatever fucking reason, decides to go and upgrade RealNetworks, a dying, old ass streaming media company from the 1990s. So right out of the gate, the algos kicked into overdrive and bought up a shit-ton of shares, driving this bitch up as high as 18% as one point. True, it could have just been traders with adequate capital considering the current share price, but the quick amounts of volume tend to point to comps doing their deeds.

Hess Corporation (HES):

Average Daily Volume: 4.2m
Today’s Volume: 6.4m
Percentage Change / Closing Price: -0.07% / 54.63
Comments: Hess isn’t about volume and that’s the point. Look what happened around 12:30pm today. A ~275k spike in volume as algos decided to puke as much as they possibly could, selling off a massive amount of shares in a very short period of time. Looking at the trend, you can see there’s a slight build up and then BOOM! Followed by a massive sell off.

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (BRCD):

Average Daily Volume: 25.5m
Today’s Volume: 51.9m
Percentage Change / Closing Price: 4.07% / 7.67
Comments: Sell off at market open, followed by a buy up, followed by a sell off, followed by a MASSIVE buy up to around $7.72 a share. Massive volume after 11am followed by an extremely quick sell off and buy move with nearly 2 million shares moving each time. Who got algo’d? That’s right: you did, you retail sucker.

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Questions? Comments? Nominees? Email us at vveneziani@gmail.com and let us know!

The SPDR Gold Trust ETF ($GLD) from last Friday to today in 30...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:59:54 -0500

The SPDR Gold Trust ETF ($GLD) from last Friday to today in 30 minute intervals. Down, down, DOWN.

A few years ago, back when Dubai was all the rage, a series of...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:40:58 -0500

A few years ago, back when Dubai was all the rage, a series of two islands shaped like palm trees were created.

One, the Palm Jumeira, was successfully completed and developed properly. The other, the Palm Jebel Ali, is now a wasteland with one road barely heading into it.

(via TBI)

Down the drain.

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:59:43 -0500

Down the drain.

If you’re into technicals and intuition, check out the...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:39:33 -0500

If you’re into technicals and intuition, check out the $JPM chart above. Looks like JP Morgan is due for another nosedive very, very soon. And with increasing MBS and derivatives exposure, the pieces of the puzzle make even more sense.

Chart courtesy of SellPuts.

UK BANKERS GET FUCKED ROYALLY

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:03:54 -0500

From Reuters: “In his pre-budget report Darling said a 50 percent levy would be taken from banks paying bonuses of over 25,000 pounds ($40,840) and should bring in 550 million pounds that the state would use toward helping the unemployed.”

Anyone working for Royal Bank of Scotland or Barclay’s must be fuming mad right now. I don’t blame you.

Gold is dead. Don’t believe me? Look at the...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:57:52 -0500

Gold is dead. Don’t believe me? Look at the chart.

December 7th: $1157/oz @ close.

December 8th: $1128/oz @ close.

And today, gold is continuing to plummet. I feel really bad for anyone who bought between $1100 and $1200 hoping to ride that shit up to $2000/oz. Suckers!

The Gartman Letter: Illinois Is The New California

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:47:48 -0500

The Gartman Letter: Illinois Is The New California:

Illinois is now second to California in terms of having a real fucking shitty fiscal crisis.

PSHDHFEHIFIEFHEFIHHIWFHVMVJVRHG(HIG$JG$RK LOOK AT THE VOLUME ON...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:26:15 -0500

PSHDHFEHIFIEFHEFIHHIWFHVMVJVRHG(HIG$JG$RK LOOK AT THE VOLUME ON HE$$! Holy fuck!

Chart courtesy of my man SellPuts.

He speaks the truth. All talk - no play.

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:21:01 -0500

He speaks the truth. All talk - no play.

A MUST READ: The 2009 Silicon Alley 100

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:14:20 -0500

A MUST READ: The 2009 Silicon Alley 100

Love this show. (via itsalwayssunny)

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:13:35 -0500

Love this show. (via itsalwayssunny)