The Plunge Protection Team Is Opening An HFT-Focused Chicago Office

For several days we had heard a persistent rumor, that one of the most famous members of the New York Fed’s Markets Group, also known as the Plunge Protection Team, Kevin Henry was moving to the HFT capital of the world, Chicago. We refused to believe it because, let’s face it, when the trading desk on the9th floor of Liberty 33 needs to get its hands dirty in stocks, it simply delegates said task using just a little more than arms length negotiation, with the world’s most levered HFT hedge fund: Ken Griffin’s Citadel. Why change the status quo.
And then, it turned out to be true because as the Chicago Fed announced just a few short days ago:
The Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York manages the size and composition of the Federal Reserve System’s balance sheet consistent with the directives and the authorization of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), supports debt issuance and debt management on behalf of the U. S. Treasury, provides foreign exchange services to the U. S. Treasury and provides account services to foreign central banks, international agencies and U. S. government agencies. Markets Group is establishing a presence at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and has openings for both experienced professionals and recent graduates.
So instead of interacting with the HFT momentum ignition algos using the microwave line of sight towers from NY all the way to Chicago, the NY Fed has decided it needs to be present on location in the windy city to buy up every ES contract and reverse the selling momentum when the day of reckoning finally hits.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 09/28/2014.