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Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ggersh who wrote (43516)	12/1/2011 4:23:40 PM
From: John	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71463

From the Things That Make You Go Hmmmm department, I am noticing more and more these days that index prices are tending to fluctuate after the closing bell. Before the year 2000, when the closing bell on the NYSE rang it was very unusual to see an index move again until the following day, even 15 secs later. Today, in the world of computer trading, one would think that when the final bell sounds, a final index price would be locked in immediately. I noticed today that the ^RUT and ^MID indices both continued falling for about 10 minutes after the closing bell. 10 minutes! The ^RUT fell from -0.72% at exactly 4PM EST when the closing bell rang to -0.90% at 4:10PM EST. The ^MID fell quite a bit too, but not as much. I watch all major and secondary indices very closely each and every day and I have noted that this pattern of unusual behavior is increasing. On most occasions prices freeze at the close or very shortly thereafter, but on many occasions, they do not. It is difficult to understand why trades are not settled by the closing bell, especially with the advent of modern computerized trading and very efficient telecommunications of today. Damnit, is there a cutoff time or not, and who has permission to execute trades after the close these days to affect closing prices to such a significant extent? Before anyone thinks that I'm griping because I was long today, I was actually short the ^RUT and the ^MID and the post-close moves actually benefitted me, but that's not the point. I'm just noting these "unusual" occurrences that are definitely not so unusual anymore. -ng-