Over the last three months, there has been a repeatable and extremely sizable footprint in the /ES market that consistently comes in and drives equities lower.
The flow has a very specific execution pattern. They pile into the order book, aggressively taking liquidity tick after tick through what looks like a compressed TWAP. The price impact is immediate, and the pressure tends to remain heavy throughout the moment they turn the program on. In some ways, it resembles forced or margin-related selling (waterfall like selling), despite the fact that it clearly isn’t. When they release from the orderbook, the market slightly bounces and then trades in a small range for the remaining part of the day. There’s other execution tendencies this end user has. I won’t list out all for obvious reasons but at this point I’m sure a lot of traders are seeing this.
What makes it particularly interesting is trying to conceptualize what type of shop could be behind it. There are very few firms in the world with a balance sheet large enough to consistently trade this kind of size and execute in such an elementary manner.
And no it’s not due to gamma or delta hedging. It doesn’t behave like a traditional equity derivatives dealer that would be hedging out delta/ gamma risk. The execution is less sophisticated, and the footprint tends to have a strong cross-asset relationship with moves in rates, which isn’t typically what you would expect from an equity derivatives market maker. It’s not a vol control fund, it’s not a pension or endowment. Which narrows the list down for those with a creative mind.
These things end up making headlines weeks or months later. Whatever this flow is, it’s truly fascinating to watch this footprint reappear every few days with such force, consistency, and lack of care to hide their impact. I’m not sure I have ever seen a flow like this while markets are so close to all time highs.
LTF
btc/eth breakout stalling
garbage like avax pumping
garrett reveal topping zcash
high relative open interest
HTF
eth great if > 2400
btc great if > 77k
Democratize music: now all music sucks
Democratize trading: everyone loses money
Democratize media: everyone becomes retarded
What do you think happens when we democratize intelligence