Blackpool Is The Only Valid Dark Pool (A Flashback Post)

With the latest phase of the Great Recession upon us, time for a post from July 2009.
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Dark Pools and many other forms of "Shadow Markets" are entirely non-regulated. 
Utilised for the trading of huge blocks of institutional, and often inside, knowledge, Dark Pools allow an array of benefits for big investors.
As if being able to trade inside information in a private non-regulated environment were not enough of an advantage, market participants are assured of no price scalping, anonymity, and the ability to trade on the 'highest platform' - always the dominant level in any market structure.

The whole Dark Pool edifice is self-supporting in its self-generated protective bubble.
The broker-dealers and exchanges offering Dark Poolery are in a privileged position, which is why they are able to offer such generous terms to institutional investors in the first place.
They are first in the line for highly influential market information - primary level cloned trading is a good place to be.
This knowledge is very valuable and is immediately traded around the Dark Pool network - there are currently 40 operators in the US and 9% of market activity is located in these private environments.

By 2010, it is projected that there will be around one hundred Dark Pools worldwide which is not a sustainable number. The Dark Pool sector will consolidate and mature. Due to the nature of this sector, players will disappear apace when the chips are down. 
The dynamic to evolve to maturity at speed is also paramount for this sector due to the Depression. The market cannot sustain 100 platforms. Primary level advantage in a mature market sector in a Depression era is an ultimate market locus. 
Securing advantage in route to market and, crucially, a temporal edge in order to jump-start the next wave of the Depression to proprietary advantage, this sector exists simply to optimise the trading environment and performance of a 'financial elite'.

These constructs are the future of financial markets.
These structures are highly regressive.

Non-regulated private markets allow a Pandora's box of market abuse away from the glare of oversight. Co-ordinated market strategies may be orchestrated to corner a particular market to the detriment of the selected victims, entirely controlled market entities may be developed, fake market momentum generated etc etc.

There are so many loopholes in Dark Pools that the fabric of regulation crumbles to pieces - there is not enough 'solidity' to allow the holes to be looped!
But, insider trading opportunities are surely the most pernicious.

Company officers are being allowed a massive perk here - the ability to privately back or lay their company (or other companies in which they hold directorships or primary level inside information) without such positioning being reported to any regulatory body nor, obviously, any public place.

This creates a very tilted marketplace to the benefit of the elite and the disadvantage of everybody else, including the lower tiers of financial capitalism.
By taking advantage of private markets to trade their information, insiders are severely hampering price transparency.
Without price transparency, free market capitalism works even less well than is already the case.
So, the global economic well-being deteriorates just to allow the Chosen Few to trade yet another poker table of our existences.

Of course, eventually, the private trading reaches the public space, but only after it has visited numerous other private spaces on the way. 
Repeated cloned trading by brokers announces the neohyperreality to the public markets so that the massed middle classes are able to add such data to their software and charts.

In a Depression, the temporal edge is the most important.
Markets are volatile in Depressions.
Trading the volatility is easy money.
Gaining solid price enhances these profits.
But the main advantage bestowed by the temporal edge is when significant breakpoint news is known to the elite. In the most serious state - market paralysis, think Iceland - this temporal edge allows massive market advantage.
You should think through the other potential trading templates that offer structural advantage to these market architects - there are many of them.

As we have said once before, the Dark Pools offer temporal advantage in the current Depression in a parallel manner to which the Ticker-Tape did in the Great Depression.

The only question remaining is surely this.
Will this Depression be the Even Greater Depression or the Permanent Depression?

Still we should be grateful for one thing, at least the financial elite look like they will come through with their assets suitably bolstered when judged comparatively.
This is very pleasing...

Speculators are always blamed for the crises of capitalism.
But this is too simple a view.
Insider traders and primary level clone traders are the Dark Pool and their leeches, and the catastrophes that define this system are generated by the market activities of these participants.
But your average speculator is not in these elevated circles.
Your average speculator is riding the surf rather than generating the wave in the first place.

So blame NYFix and Turquoise and, soon, Baikal.
And blame the state-based economic systems that allow this chicanery to take place while the world goes to pot, rack and ruin.

© Football Is Fixed 2006-2015

Mamma Mia - Calling The Shade

Malmo FF...
... FFS.

Last evening Celtic meekly exited the Champions League Play-Offs for the second consecutive year to a team markedly weaker on paper.
Losing to the likes of Malmo and Maribor (and Legia Warszawa for that matter) are huge retrograde steps from the beating of Barcelona, and a club that used to target qualification for the Knockout Phase of Europe's premier competition cannot now even qualify for the Group Phase

With reward money for all levels of Champions League participation being significantly increased this season (by 39.5% for reaching Group Phase and 57.1% for achieving Knockout Phase), this is another financial own goal by the upper hierarchy at Celtic.
The hierarchy have created a self-harming Catch 22 Death Spiral whereby underinvestment in quality players leads to underperformance in Champions League which produces less revenue which results in a decline in player values which conspire to mean less money available to purchase future quality players etc etc etc.
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This is just another example of Football For Rent (http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/football-for-rent.html) where clubs are financialised to the benefits of an inner 'elite'.

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Below we explore the extensive reasons behind Celtic's (and Glasgow's) malaise.
Some parts of this article are redacted and please don't waste our time or yours by futile requests to have the redaction removed.
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Team and Tactics

The match strategies were wrong for both games of the Malmo tie.
The 2-0 lead in the 1st Leg should have been consolidated rather than opening up the game further in the second half while the gutless performance in the 2nd Leg was pitiful.

Was impossible to see this Celtic outcome, half an hour into leg one. Lack of game (and coaching) intelligence thereafter was glaring.

— Ewan Murray (@mrewanmurray) August 26, 2015

Celtic covered 6 km less than Malmo last night (and 2 km less in 1st Leg) and managed just 6 shots on target over 192 minutes of play. Why were the team so unfit (especially when most players were rested at the weekend)?
Moreover, it is generally acknowledged within the game that zonal marking only functions for certain teams in certain games - the refusal to adjust cost the Bhoys three goals over the two matches.

Ronny Deila is a promising young manager as he demonstrated at Stromsgodset but he is a novice on the European stage and there is no tactical nor analytical support to back him up within the club.

Analytics

The only analytical input at Celtic comes from an individual who is several courgettes short of a ratatouille. When even lesser Scandinavian clubs like Midtjylland utilise basic 'Moneyball' analytics, Celtic are still in the Stone Age.

Why was no analysis undertaken and activated regarding the weaknesses in Malmo's keeper Johan Wiland?
Why were no strategies developed to deal with the officiating of Felix Brych and Milorad Mazic?
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And why zonal marking with a back four still knitting together?

And there are other areas of analysis that the club hierarchy and management simply didn't even consider such as ##############################################################
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There has been no progression at all in recent years - the non-analysis of Undiano Mallenco prior to the 0-3 Juve match, the wrong match strategies versus Karagandy, Milan and Ajax (twice) in 2013/14, the farcical qualification last season which saw #################################
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Why were the club not aware of the above parameters and inputs?
Why was no defensive strategy co-ordinated?
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The Role of Rogue Agents

Numerous rogue agents hover around the peripheries of the Celtic boardroom which is similar to many clubs. ################################################### #########################
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No agent has club interests at heart.
It is not advisable for any club to be too closely linked with one (or a small number of agencies) - even Real Madrid suffer next to Barcelona due to their extensive ties with Gestifute.

Sabermetrics and Transfer 'Strategies'

The imbalance between club earnings and club spending on transfers is considerable and a robust feature of the financialisation of Celtic.
Even without access to privileged data, fans can perceive that the players exiting are not being replaced adequately.

Agents are part of the problem but ##########################################
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Bookmakers

The linkages between cabals of bookmakers and the Scottish game get ever more intimate.
We have Betdaq being sold to Ladbrokes (the official bookmaker of Rangers) and then Ladbrokes sponsoring the SPFL and Championship prior to teaming up with Coral.
And we have a Ladbrokes ambassador as Scotland manager.
We also have Celtic providing a link to Unibet on the Celtic club App when Sportsbook Review advises punters to avoid this firm due to issues of integrity.

When bookmakers and legitimate sport move within shared spheres of orbit, there are all types of conflicts of interest and skewed incentives suddenly appearing on the table.

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Conclusion

Underachievement by Celtic in the last three seasons in the Champions League has resulted in a missed opportunity of around £60m in UEFA rewards, television money, inflation in player value etc etc.
The short-termism that underpins this lack of forward planning is moving the club backwards year-on-year-on-year.

Lennon took 2 seasons to build a UCL team, Lawwell took one transfer window to destroy it imo

— Celtic Rock & Roars (@CelticRockRoars) August 26, 2015

Not surprisingly, both Scottish and English football decline together in lockstep as money is sucked out of the game via financialisation while overall club quality deteriorates in comparison to Europe.
The EPL and SPFL are mutant twins.

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And Scottish football as a whole is decelerating.

Celtic's euphoric redemption will come with victories against St Johnstone and Aberdeen and the excitement of a Europa League campaign of minimal financial consequence.
But St Johnstone were knocked out of Europe by Alashkert of Armenia and Aberdeen by the might of Kairat from Kazakhstan.

When will proper stock be taken of this decline in Scottish football?

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© Football is Fixed 2006-2015

Leech Consultancy - The Twilight Zone (A Flashback Post from September 2013)

                                       A Leech Consultant Settling Down At The Desk

Leeching: To feed, a leech attaches itself to a human or animal through suckers at each end of its body and then eats its host's blood. Leeches can eat six to eight times their body weight, but rather than sinking to the bottom of the body of water, leeches produce a natural anticoagulant or blood thinner, which keeps the blood in them from thickening and clotting and allows them to stay mobile.

We leech...

Leech consultants optimise performance.

All cutting edge bodies understand the quest to gain robust competitive advantage. They seek leech consultants.

Leeches sit on the threshold between white markets and grey but spend all of their time forensically analysing the grey and, in particular, the black markets.
Especially in mature market late capitalism.

Take football.

No institution, club, bookmaker, agent or association can admit the extent to which insider gambling has spread through the sport like a rampant cancer.
Recent arrests in Australia, Singapore and El Salvador (where five players with more than 50 international appearances are implicated) together with the banning of numerous clubs has to be held at the marketing damage limitation level of  "a few bad apples" - activities undertaken by poorly paid fringe players in peripheral territories often influenced by rogue South East Asian underground markets.

But the corruption is far more central to the FIFA Football Family than that.
Yet this cannot be made public and cannot be acknowledged.

Many loci within the game are desperate for this knowledge.

Without such knowledge, people in the "sport" are unable to protect themselves from corruptions perpetrated against their interests.
Strategic defence is the name of the modern game.

Leech consultancy bridges this divide.

Football is Fixed are a leech consultancy network.
We operate to stretch the belief mechanisms of clients regarding the degrees of corruption across the football continuum.
We create defensive yet assertive strategies to optimise performance in this environment, a consultative aikido.

We circumvent the issue of our tendencies to whistleblow by developing robust contracts and establishing a unique structure of operation.

We leech ourselves onto an entity or individual approximate to the body to whom we consult. This entity/individual then liaises between the two parties.
At no time do the two parties need to meet and any data, information and/or privileged knowledge that is requested can always be denied if deemed incriminating.

Every entity has to cut corners to exist in this domain and nobody should trust justice-based whistleblowers.
Leech consultancy is the only solution.

Our consultancy spectrum includes market analysis, economic modelling, risk analysis, corruption forensics, holographic modelling of white/ grey/ black market structures in mature markets, defensive strategies against corruptions perpetrated against a clients' interests, holistic sabermetrics utilising our data archive, intermarket analysis, dark pool poker table analysis, creation of regulatory structures to disarm corrupt processes, behavioural economic modelling, scenario analysis, establishing creative match strategies in enemy environments, legal market hacking, fraud investigation, exposing corrupted market loopholes, psychology of finance...

We provide good health and our clients provide sustenance.

N.B. Of course, there is a branch of leech consultancy that enacts strategic exploitation of late capitalist structures and markets but that is an entirely different form of leech consultancy known as the sociopathic. We could do that too but we choose not to.

For many more itemised angles on corruption follow us on Twitter @FootballIsFixed

© Football is Fixed 2006-2015  

mediastorm 20

#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #20

If Malmo Fail to Overcome Celtic, There Will Be No Scandinavian Qualifiers in Champions League

Pawson To Officiate BT Sport Live Man Utd v Newcastle on Saturday Despite Last Night

Modelling Inversion Capitalism from a Speculative Perspective

Underpricing of Risk in In-Play Betting Markets

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Now available on podcast too

"In effect, the English Premier League and the Scottish Premier League, via their respective control of the Football Association and the Scottish FA, are able to block all and any changes to the Laws of the Game with the support of just one other IFAB member."  

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #19

Flashback to Germany v Sweden Events During FIFA World Cup 2014 Qualifiers

Cherries Picked by Pawson

In Running Conspicuous Trading on Midtjylland Events

No Singularities, No Big Bang, No Black Holes, No Inflation, No Dark Matter Nor Energy

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Sid Lowe: "Matchfixing is the ultimate crime in football. If it is not a competition, it is nothing."

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #18

Coquelin Up - Another Farcical PGMOB Select Group Event

The Increasingly Inappropriate Linkages Between BBC, BT Sport and Certain Other Media

Parallels Between Sarris/Marinakis Establishing Gang to Fix Matches in Greece and Mobgate in EPL

Michel Platini's Fake Reasoning for Removing UEFA's Financial Fairplay Rules

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Glenn Riddersholm explaining his reasons for resigning from managing Midtjylland after winning the Danish Superliga for the first time in the club's history and qualifying for Champions League Qualifiers: "I've been honest to myself and have admitted there are everyday compromises that I can no longer accept if I want to remain the best version of myself and the leader I want to be for the players and staff."

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #17

Chapter Titles (Preliminary) for Forthcoming Book

Key Sports, Stellar, Base and Wasserman - ############# Agencies

Dark Pool Intermarket Analyses - Modelling Known Unknowns

Tuchel Emphasises Sabermetric Decline of Klopp at Dortmund - Analyses

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Sir Bob Russell (former MP): “I think there’s general agreement that professional football in this country is rotten to the core, not least parasitic agents taking millions of pounds a year out of the game."

mediastorm 16

#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #16

Evaluation of Dark Pool Low Volatility Trading on Manchester City v Chelsea in Early Market

Conversion Issues with Big Data in Neural Networks

Freemasonic Apartheid - Not One Black Official in EPL in Last 10,708 Appointments

Chinese Walls Between Club Hierarchies and Fan Catalyst Websites in Scottish Premier League

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Slavoj Žižek: "The problem is today when you have chaos or disorder, people lose their cognitive mapping."

mediastorm 15

#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #15

The Analytical Demise of a Great English Bookmaker

Champions League Qualifiers - Early Market Analysis and Privileged Information

EPL NE Betting Patterns - Advocaat Snowballed and Ashley's Wally with the Brolly

Cartelised Agents in Britain and Bookmaker Links

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Honore Balzac: "Behind every great fortune is a great crime."

mediastorm 14

#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #14

Market Analyses of Gambles on Norwich City and Watford in EPL

Sabermetric Measurement of Top 20 European Goalkeepers (Not One English Keeper!)

SE Asian Market Maker's View on Indian Super League Corruption

Global Listing of Bookmakers that Allow Non-Insider Trading Winning Accounts

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Roland Barthes: "To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing."

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #13

Carson Yeung Released From Jail on Bail To Appeal Money Laundering Charges - Holistic Overview

Modelling European Market Makers' Global Intermarket Impact

Accounting for Roy Hodgson's Wealth

Assessing Chung Mong-joon Versus Michel Platini for FIFA Presidency

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Jean-Francois Lyotard: "Consensus is the ultimate form of totalitarianism."

mediastorm 12

#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #12

BBC Exposed For Putting Whistleblowers' Security at Risk

Holistic Analyses of New German Bundesliga Season

Is the Universe a 3-Dimensional Surface of a 4-Sphere? (Guest Paper by our Lawyer)

Midtjylland v FC Copenhagen - Another Insider Market

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Hacking pioneer David Clark: "We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code."

mediastorm 11

#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #11

Who Placed the Huge (And Losing) Bet on Celtic to Beat Kilmarnock at Betfair?

Roy Hodgson - Not Too Much Longer To Put Up With Roy's Gang

Inside Information (Via UEFA Contact) on Champions League Qualifier Celtic v Malmo

All Things Considered, Why Are Brentford Cancelling Championship Games due to Poor Pitch?

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Ecclesiastes: "The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is the truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true."

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #10

Suspicious Betting Patterns on Brentford's 'Shock' 0-4 Defeat to Oxford Last Night

Champions League Club Meta-Data : Club Brugge and Malmo

Currency Wars - Market Volatility

Death of Azerbaijani Press Freedom Journalist Rasim Aliyev

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Jean Baudrillard: "Just because a tile falls off a roof, there is not necessarily someone underneath it at the right moment: that would be too good to be true."

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #9

Saido Berahino to Join Raheem Sterling at Manchester City - the New Title Favourites

Insiders Boost Twitter Share Price in Buy Signal

SFA Supporting Platini in FIFA Presidency Bid.

BBC Match of the Day's Hidden Agenda over Mourinho and Oliver

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Marcus Gayle: “I never thought match fixing was possible. But now I have changed my mind, for obvious reasons. Now, I am convinced it’s all over the place."

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #8

Cech Mate

Solution to EPL Market Perturbations at Weekend

Applying Factor Investing to Dark Pool Momentum and Volatility

Wage Versus Value - A Sabermetric Analysis of EPL Player Earnings

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Football is Fixed Twitter feed on morning of Community Shield: "So, Chelsea have got Arsenal to give them £11m so that a Chelsea goalkeeper can play in the Arsenal net?"

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #7

A Week in the Life of Michael Oliver - From Molde to Mouldy

An NGO Operating Diametrically Opposed to Stated Purpose

Saturday EPL Global Betting Analysis - Turnover Down

De Boer Desperate to Offload Cillessen to Manchester United

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When Doncaster Rovers manager Paul Dickov allowed Bury to walk in an injury time equaliser after Rovers scored a freak goal in returning the ball to the Gigg Laners, David Flitcroft (the Bury manager) was moved to say: "I've got the ultimate respect for Paul Dickov... Paul put football into a good place with his sportsmanship today because if you lose morality the game has no substance for me."

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #6

The Global Steamer on Leicester City - Analysis

Van Gaal's Romero Risk

Blackpool's 3 Point Suspension Nudge

Paris St Germain - Dead Ball Analyses

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Howard Webb commenting on Jon Moss with commentary from Michael Owen, Harry Redknapp and Robbie Savage. #BTSport SHOWTIME! #MUNTOT

— FOOTBALL is FIXED (@footballisfixed) August 8, 2015

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#FootballisFixed Inner Circular #5

Why Arsenal will not win EPL title - Scudamoreworld is not a Level Playing Field

'Media Implosion' reaches Europe - Concerns over BTSport Business Model

Evaluations of Insider Betting on Man Utd v Spurs and Stoke v Liverpool

Five Scottish Clubs with Questionable Ownership

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Chilean journalist Juan Cristóbal Guarello: "All the allegations that the FIFA executives face (fraud and money laundering) are everyday elements of their activity. That is to say they are an essential part of football for rent."