dimelab dimelab: shrinking the gap between talk and action.

s Dominic Topic in The Credit Debacle Catalog

Goldman's domination (5); s dominant economic thinking violates (1); threaten coal's domination (1).

zero hedge Sun 2010-05-09 09:15 EDT

Where Was Goldman's Supplementary Liquidity Provider Team Yesterday? A Recap Of Goldman's Program Trading Monopoly

In addition to having said many things about HFT in general in the last year, over the past 12 months Zero Hedge has focused a lot of attention specifically on Goldman's dominance of the NYSE's Program Trading platform, where in addition to recent entrant GETCO, it has been to date an explicit monopolist of the so-called Supplementary Liquidity Provider program, a role which affords the company greater liquidity rebates for, well providing liquidity (more on this below), and generating who knows what other possible front market-looking, flow-prop integration (presumably legal) benefits. Yesterday, Goldman's SLP function was non-existent. One wonders - was the Goldman SLP team in fact liquidity taking, or to put it bluntly, among the main reasons for the market collapse...Readers are welcome to go back through our archives and acquaint themselves with the NYSE's SLP program, with Goldman's domination of program trading, with Goldman's domination of dark trading venues via the Sigma X suite, with Goldman's domination of flow trading via Redi X, and with Goldman's domination of virtually every vertical of the capital markets, which would be terrific if monopolies were encouraged in the US...We have long claimed that Goldman is the de facto monopolist of the NYSE's program trading platform. As such, it is certainly the case that Goldman was instrumental in either a) precipitating yesterday's crash or b) not providing the critical liquidity which it is required to do, when the time came...

Goldman's Program Trading Monopoly; Goldman's Supplementary Liquidity Provider Team; Recap; Zero Hedge.

Sun 2010-03-21 09:58 EDT

Economist.comNatural gas | An unconventional glut | Economist.comNatural gas | An unconventional glut | Economist.com

...North America has an unforeseen surfeit of natural gas. The United States' purchases of LNG have dwindled. It has enough gas under its soil to inspire dreams of self-sufficiency. Other parts of the world may also be sitting on lots of gas. Those in the vanguard of this global gas revolution say it will transform the battle against carbon, threaten coal's domination of electricity generation and, by dramatically reducing the power of exporters of oil and conventional gas, turn the geopolitics of energy on its head...

com; comNatural gas; Economist; unconventional glut.

Sun 2010-01-31 12:00 EST

Does Economics Violate the Laws of Physics?: Scientific American

SYRACUSE, N.Y.--The financial crisis and subsequent global recession have led to much soul-searching among economists, the vast majority of whom never saw it coming. But were their assumptions and models wrong only because of minor errors or because today's dominant economic thinking violates the laws of physics? ... "Real economics is the study of how people transform nature to meet their needs," said Charles Hall, professor of systems ecology at SUNY-ESF and organizer of both gatherings in Syracuse. "Neoclassical economics is inconsistent with the laws of thermodynamics."

Economics Violate; Law; physical; Scientific American.