FLASH MOVEMENTS 2011-03-16 5pm EST

If anyone is watching now(1700 EST, 2100 GMT), hang on for a rough ride! INSANE movements! WOOOO!!!

Most pairs moving by up to 400 pips in 20 minutes. Spreads widening to 30+ pips even for major pairs.

What's happening?

Yeah, I just got taken for a ride I won't easily forget.............my GDF broker missed my stoploss by 112 pips😂

GBPJPY -530 pips
EURJPY -430 pips
AUDJPY -390 pips
USDJPY -320 pips
CADJPY -330 pips
CHFJPY -220 pips

USDCHF -170 pips
GBPCHF -310 pips
EURCHF -200 pips

AUDUSD -100 pips
GBPAUD +130 pips
EURAUD +170 pips
AUDNZD +160 pips
AUDCAD -120 pips

Civil war in Libya?

compuforexpamm posted:
    Yeah, I just got taken for a ride I won't easily forget.............my GDF broker missed my stoploss by 112 pips😂

Sorry to hear that, man. I had prices gap below my SL before too, sucks when that happens. 112 pips is pretty insane though.

Thanks.....been a bad month with Jade to boot. Lucky last night's fiasco only cost me about 1% but it could have been really nasty with a bit more exposure. I have come to believe that 50:1 leverage does have its benefits......it keeps risk under control.

So what exactly happened to create such movement? I was away from my pc at the time..

https://www.forexlive.com/173735/all/usdjpy-option-book-selling-caused-the-collapse

If you scroll the charts back to May 2010, something similar happened to U/J.

speki posted:
    https://www.forexlive.com/173735/all/usdjpy-option-book-selling-caused-the-collapse

If you scroll the charts back to May 2010, something similar happened to U/J.

Right, I remember the day! It was the end for many carry traders..

Thanks 😄

These kinds of flash crashes fly in the face of 'value investing' and proper price discovery. A little surprised today's movement was not mentioned much in the news, might be because it happened in the non-trading hours of the equity markets, so little to no net impact there.

Raiden posted:
    A little surprised today's movement was not mentioned much in the news, might be because it happened in the non-trading hours of the equity markets, so little to no net impact there.

Most likely.

I wonder if the movement was caused on off hours on purpose? Was it to prevent a deeper impact on the market?

I am sure it is on purpose. The SNB has a used to have a habit of messing with the CHF and they would target low-liquidity periods. I think it is far easier and cheaper for them to move the market when there is no liquidity.

I do not think so, the guess the key reasons were breach of multiyear lows USD/JPY, heavy orders inbalance and extremely thin trading. The other pairs simply were ripples on this pair.

I was glued to the screen yesterday too, this was a real show. The last time I saw something similar was May 2010...

compuforexpamm posted:
    I am sure it is on purpose. The SNB has a used to have a habit of messing with the CHF and they would target low-liquidity periods. I think it is far easier and cheaper for them to move the market when there is no liquidity.

I believe the SNB does manipulate the CHF. I avoid the CHF pairs largely because of it. However, I don't think this instance was due to them(see below).

pipdetector posted:
I do not think so, the guess the key reasons were breach of multiyear lows USD/JPY, heavy orders inbalance and extremely thin trading. The other pairs simply were ripples on this pair.

I was glued to the screen yesterday too, this was a real show. The last time I saw something similar was May 2010...

I'm inclined to agree there's some other reason than central bank intervention. This flash movement had the same characteristics as the May 6 Flash Crash, and not the Sep 15 BOJ intervention where we could see a more structured rise. Similar to May 6, there were simply no prices available and the spread widening to a ridiculous amount. We also see the quick recovery of the price back to the pre-crash event within 2-3 hours, similar to May 6 and different from the sustained impact of dumping physical currency into the market on Sep 15.

It's a pity this did not catch the eye of the mainstream financial market as I feel it warrants some investigation. Were the stock markets open, the equity boys would be crying murder. Whoever's doing this is getting smarter.

You're right Raiden, Sep 15 and last year's SNB interventions looked different than May and yesterday. But how can you explain that no prices were available? Liquidity was drier than a nun's muff, and big orders came in. What if nobody's 'doing it', this stuff happens intraday all the time: price takes out all highs/lows then reverses sharply, stopping out everyone in every direction. Yesterday it happened on the daily chart, once in a year it can happen.

ANOTHER move this 0000 GMT after G7 Nations agree on a co-ordinated move to stem JPY appreciation. Crazy times.

This can't be healthy for the currency markets in the long run. The idea of fundamental analysis just goes smack out of the window.

What if we just have to get used to such moves, once in a month or so? Intraday or 'intraweek' massacre in a flash, then things get back to 'normal'.

Anyways, small positions will survive even such moves ... and big overleveraged trades ... get bucklefucked properly.