Big business

From Zerohedge: "... If one looks around and wonders where the speculators have gone (the carbon-based variety, not the feedback-loop creating, binary terrorists) look no further than the FX market, which according to the latest BIS data, has hit $4 trillion in daily notional volume (20% higher than the $3.3 trillion in 2007), nearly quadruple the combined U.S. stock and Treasury trading, which in April averaged about $134 billion a day (down from a daily average of $148 billion in 2007) and $456 billion (down from an average of $570 billion for all of 2007), respectively. This amounts to nearly one quadrillion in total dollar transaction volume per year. There are two main reasons for the exodus from other products, and for ongoing cloning of the "Japanese housewife" phenomenon: the ongoing migration away from the bizarre daily moves in stocks, which are now traded almost exclusively by robots, or other frontrunning machine, and the ridiculous leverage allowed in FX margin accounts..."

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Comment: I've been in this business for over three decades by now. When I began in this business we wondered about the one and two billion dollars a day figures. And it was great time we've had. The yen was easy, dollar up and dollar down as well. The euro gave a concerned at first, but then it was also a clear shot, particularly against the dollar. Now, so it seems, we are a watershed, with these volumes anything becomes possible, and it is time for the wise to retreat and leave this field, too, for the fools.