
Mystery 'Dude' Rattles Turkish Stock Traders With Massive Bets - petethomas
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-10/mystery-dude-rattles-turkish-stock-traders-with-massive-bets
======
chollida1
So a few things to help make this clearer.

1) The title is pretty misleading, the identity is known to regulators. Most
funds will use a sell side bank who has access to the market to put their
orders out. Especially for a country like Turkey where it doesn't make much
sense to buy your own pipe.

Its just the rest of the market who doesn't know the identity of the firm.
This is common in all countries.

2) Developing countries markets almost always have very little liquidity so
its not surprising for a firm to come in with a global macro view and move hte
market when trying to put their position on.

In fact its the one place where people still act like the opening scene,
atleast I think it was the opening scene, from Liar's Poker
([http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B003E20ZRY/](http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B003E20ZRY/))
where the trader tries to bully the market by deciding bonds should go up so
he buys a whack of them and then when the market fails to move he doubles down
on his bet and buys more causing the rest of the market to go along with him.

You can't really strong arm developed world markets but you still can bully
developing countries markets in this way. You are essentially playing chicken.

The problem is always how do you close your position. If buying so much moves
the markets then its obvious that selling will also do the same. usually you
are forced to sell your position to a big sell side firm who can take the
exposure.

------
jackgavigan
Turkey was one of the markets I used to cover when I was a trader. Amongst the
EMEA emerging markets, Turkey is one of the most popular/active in terms of
hedge fund trading. They made a concerted effort in recent years to upgrade
their market infrastructure (including the introduction of direct market
access, where brokers will sponsor their clients to connect to the exchange
electronically).

I think it's unlikely that the new market actor(s?) are taking big directional
bets (although it's certainly possible). I think it's more likely that they're
market-making or executing futures or index arbitrage strategies (in which
case, what would _look_ like a directional bet in the cash equities market
would be offset by a corresponding trade in another security or derivative.

------
losvedir
How is the identity of the investor unknown? Is it that Turkey is very lax on
identification requirements and no one really knows who this is? Or, is it the
case that _someone_ (the brokerage, I guess) knows, but it's private
information?

~~~
therein
It sounds like it is the latter. The company they mention in the article
(Yatirim Finansman) literally translates to "Investment Financing". A name so
generic that it just has to be a front. The article points out how this was a
small volume brokerage firm that suddenly started executing this entity's
trades and started dominating the market in terms of volume.

~~~
coverband
Maybe the name sounds generic because of this:

"Yatırım Finansman (YF Securities), Turkey's first brokerage house, was
founded on October 15, 1976 by 13 major banks led by Isbank and the Industrial
Development Bank of Turkey (TSKB)."[+]

[+] [http://www.yf.com.tr/YF/en/about-us/yf-securities-in-
brief.a...](http://www.yf.com.tr/YF/en/about-us/yf-securities-in-brief.aspx)

~~~
therein
Very interesting. That's more than enough to at least make them a legitimate
financial entity. I wonder how much control the government has over YF at this
point in time.

------
rblatz
I can't help but wonder if the dude is actually another country looking to
gain greater control or influence over Turkey.

~~~
hanniabu
All you have to do to gain control over a middle eastern country is claim that
there are terrorists there or that the leader of the country is a tyrant.
Seems to have worked beautifully in the past without question.

~~~
splatcollision
It's Turkey. IT IS NOT THE MIDDLE EAST.

Now, that being said, the political situation there right now is increasingly
hellish. What's going on there now is the result of a very long game that has
been played out since before the modern Turkish republic, founded by Ataturk.

~~~
kgwgk
It's not unusual to include Turkey in the Middle East region:

[http://www.britannica.com/place/Middle-
East](http://www.britannica.com/place/Middle-East)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East)

------
f4stjack
Hah, the funniest part is, at the time of this writing at least, none of the
Turkish news agencies have published this story.

The dude abides, indeed.

edit: now they did :D

------
bimgbad
whats the benefit for the trader doing this and then why wouldn't others do
the same?

~~~
pjc50
_why wouldn 't others do the same?_

Not many people have $160m to throw around on the Turkish stock exchange. It's
a riskier market than the more established western ones.

~~~
nradov
Riskier how? Is it just more volatile, or are you referring to political risk,
interest rate risk, or currency risk?

------
PaulRobinson
Pretty obvious this is an algotrading fund that has turned up with new kit and
happen to be the largest player because the market has so little liquidity.

50p says it's an investment bank or hedge fund familiar to most people who
know something about this area, and the people involved might be surprised
themselves to find liquidity is so low that they are market making.

------
thewhitetulip
I wonder how Turkish Stock exchange laws can be this lax, they should have
some information in public domain about people trading

~~~
egeozcan
We have not so many strictly enforced laws to prevent these kinds of
activities from happening but many to prevent them from being documented.

------
gchokov
"Indeed, the bigger issue may not be who “the dude” is, but what it is,
according to Isik Okte, an investment strategist at TEB Invest/BNP Paribas."

------
nkurz
Can anyone here comment on the rumors that some of the later challenges in
Stockfighter.io use the Turkish stockmarket as a real-life backend?

------
thedeerchaser
The Dude abides

~~~
jay-saint
they should have left his rug alone.

