[ [ [ bloggin space w i k i ] ] ]The Stock Market
The US equity market known more familiarly to the average SUV driving American as the stock market is a nebulous system of money harvesting, hedging, betting, buying, selling, and general fuckery that abounds perhaps our wildest imaginations.
The derivatives market
Unknown to the average mom and pop, the derivatives market of futures, options, swaps, and god knows what other satanic instrument pulls the true strings of the market, due to its inherently leveraged and occasionally illiquid nature. After the rise of payment for order flow and heavy commission reductions with US brokers, parts of this market have become more accessible to the general public, who predictably treat it as a legal glorified casino. Users like BallSac constantly search for the next 1000x instrument, which sadly is a criteria that happens daily in some part of the casino market.
The equity futures market, spanning the overnight hours between the markets close and opening bell, is responsible for nearly all movement of stocks in the last 10 years. How the entire market cap of most of the globe moves wildly in price due to an instrument that trades less than 10 contracts a minute remains a mystery.