Who made the statements this past week?

–         Powerful managers use ultra ETF’s of mass destruction to push stocks around.
–       Performance of stocks has become disconnected from performance of the underlying companies.

–         If you go swimming in this market, there is no lifeguard on duty.

–         The SEC, who favors high frequency traders, is not doing their job protecting the little guys.

–         Our markets have been captured by high frequency traders, and the EXCHANGES.

–         TheSEC has approved all kinds of innovations that make the market less legitimate, and less safe.

–         The SEC has approved all kinds of things that make the markets more dangerous, and more difficult for you to save money for your kids.

–         If you think the SEC has your back, think again.

–         If you think the Exchanges are on your side, think again.

–         In the old days Exchanges used to be non-profit; now they want their large institutional hedge funds that trade high frequency to make money, because that’s how they make money.

–         Until you get the SEC to start looking at the markets through the prism of your IRA or 401k or 529 plans instead of through a
prism of market manipulators, don’t be surprised by any outrage or flash crash. It can happen again.

Did you guess the guys at Themis Trading? If you did you would be wrong. We did make those statements in almost 160 other weeks, but in this past week it was not us. Rather, those statements were made by CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Mad Money this past Friday evening. It was his opening monologue, and you can watch it here: Cramer’s MadMoney Monologue July 8th, 2011 on HFT, Exchanges, and the SEC

Jim kicked butt. I hope that CNBC replays it over and over again! His large audience needs to hear it, be outraged, and express that outrage to their politicians. Those Congressmen need to be put on notice that they need to get out of the pockets of the lobbyists of the proprietary traders, exchanges, and HFT’s. Pronto.

 
Where we left off 4:00pm EST:

INDU              12,505.76                                -151.44

SPX                 1,319.49                                  -24.31

CCMP             2,802.62                                  -57.19

Futures now at 7:10 am EST:

DJA                             -92

SPA                             -14.20

NDA                           -21.75

Key Data out today:

07:30:              NFIB Small Business Optimism. HA!

08:30:              Trade Balance.

02:00:              Fed Release of Fed Minutes
Since the prior close, some key stories:

–    PIIGS are flying. Really.

–      Italian Credit Risk rises to record.

–      Six Spanish banks failed their stress tests.

–      Euro weakens.

–      Good news out of Japan, however: the BOJ raised its assessment of the Japanese economy for the second time in a row; recovery is happening there.

–      Debt Ceiling talk continues, which I don’t get. I mean we did spend the money already right? It’s not like moving the ceiling or not will change that? Help me?

–      CSCO to cut 10,000 Jobs. Don’t tell Joe Lavorgna; let’s see if we can get his forecast to be 200,000 off this time!

–      NCR to buy RADS for $28/share.

–      Karzai’s brother. Assassinated.

–      Syria. Whatever.

–      Afghan Women Tolerate Beating For Cellphones in $4billion Market (Bloomberg)

–      Moody’s is now showing concern about Chinese Accounting Irregularities in yest another Moody’s Barn Door Open story.

–      Cautious article on American Banker on BAC.

Significant Movers This Morning:

RADS +28%, CLNE + 12%, WWW +8%, JNY +3%, JOEZ +4%, MCHP -5%, ARUN -4%, ONNN -4%, MNTA -6%, RCL -3%,