Michael Lewis is Right “Spoofing” Proves Market Rigged on Daily Basis!

• Michael Lewis is Right “Spoofing” Proves Market Rigged on Daily Basis! 
  by EconMatters 
  Brent Spoofing & HFT
  As the European Market closes today and oil has some bearish sentiment to the trading day, one of the common techniques is to bang the European close in the Brent contract which being a much less liquid contract than WTI can be quite profitable. Usually this takes place around 10:00 to 10:30 am CST but with the time changes this week everything is pushed back an hour here in the US with the European close now being 11:00 to 11:30 am CST.
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  Specific Example of Spoofing
  Well as this bang the close strategy is happening in Brent pushing the futures contract down $56.50 to $55.50 in 10 minutes a nice illustration of HFT Algo strategy plays out, in other words blatant market manipulation also called spoofing was conducted by some large firm. Here is the case and this isn`t specific to Brent, Oil, or an unusual event this happens in all markets throughout the trading day. So as Brent is going lower some firm wants it to go lower some more so around the $55.75-80 area they park a large order around 900 futures contracts. Now this isn`t a real order, the seller isn`t really going to sit there and take in 900 buyers, it is meant to manipulate the other trading algos and buyers in general from stepping in and buying oil with the idea of pushing the contract lower. In essence “Scare” the market lower! This usually works and today it worked pushing the Brent contract down to $55.51, and needlessly to say this firm benefited from this technique and covered before eventually pulling the entire order once a couple of contracts hit on the price that the seller parked this large fake sell order.
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