Painting the tape

I feel good.
Especially when I see this kind of action in the S&P500 future. This picture is from yesterday and depicts the last 90 minutes of the sessions, when all the shorts had to cover their positions once the Big Boys step in and the index goes up, up and away.

But of course, this is tape painting, the real action remains bearish. Look the stock price of the Inter Continental Exchange (ticker: ICE). Why an exchange? They were the canary in the coalmine last autumn.
But of course, more is going on.
Reuters says:
· The top regulator of U.S. futures markets is considering a clampdown on excessive speculation in energy and commodity trading by restricting holdings of big players, part of a broader move by the Obama administration to stabilize the financial markets.
· William Blair and Co said in a research note that the stocks sank on fears of CFTC imposing restrictions on futures trading, noting that energy futures comprised up to a quarter of revenue for each of the exchanges.

And then this: the CFTC also eyes ETFs such as the Unites States Oil Fund (ticker: USO) and the United States Natural Gas Fund (ticker: UNG) as these ETFs have become so big that at one point USO held more than 20% of NYMEX front-month oil futures contracts. Sphere: Related Content