Two health ETFs. Both very different.
IBB is up 5.7 times in ten years. XLV — the one I’ve been recommending — is only up 2.5 times.
IBB is in nosebleed territory. But the urge to merge is still strong in healthcare.
How to spoof a flash crash.
With a computer and a high-speed Internet connection, you can place a zillion sell orders and then remove them quickly before they get executed. That’s how you “spoof” a market into believing it’s going down big-time. Spoofing is against the exchange’s rules. But the Chicago Mercantile Exchange doesn’t bother seriously enforcing them.
They arrested a small English trader who’s made millions spoofing. But his crime was egregious — the flash crash of 2010. If he hadn’t caused that one, he’d still be happily coining millions in his rowhouse in suburban London.
Google “flash crash chart” and you’ll find a million images of that fateful day in 2010. Here’s one:
You can find stories on spoofing in the Wall Street Journal. Click here. Business Week. Click here. And the New York Times. Click here.
Michael Lewis highlighted all the problems with his brilliant book:
If you haven’t read the book, you must.
To me the saddest part of it all is that neither Fidelity nor Schwab let me direct my trades to IEX — the one stock exchange that makes a point of not forwarding my trades to the flash boys — so they can not front run me. Which they still do.)
Ransomware is the latest scourge.
The bad guys lock your computer’s files, demand money (typically $100 to $400) to unlock them. If you don’t pay within a few days, your files are toast. Pay quickly. Trust me. Pay.
You pick up ransomware by opening email attachments, visiting bad web sites or answering phishing — e.g. a note that says “someone just charged your Visa with $765.34. Go here and fix it.”
Ransomware is not always detectable (and caught) by your Internet security or firewall software. Which is unsettling.
What to do:
1. Surf the Internet on a tablet, an iPad or an old PC. But not your good, working machine.
2. Back up all your files locally — to a thumb drive or an Apricorn drive — see the next column. Unplug the backup device from your computer and the Internet and put it in your drawer. You can backup to the cloud, but also back up locally. The cloud can be, and has been hacked.
3. Best approach is to have a second clone computer loaded with all your files and your software — ready to take over from one moment to the next.
Read about ransomware here.
Harry Newton who sees huge fines being paid by Deutsche Bank for manipulating markets — but no admission of guilt and nobody being charged, or God forbid, being put in jail for their misdeeds. It’s totally amazing what the big guys on Wall Street get away with.
I suspect Petrobras (PBR) is in a classic short squeeze. It deserves to be $5, not $8.80. But this one is too hard to play.
Never pay ransom!