Remember that Rolling Stone piece about Goldman Sachs I mentioned the other day? Here's another post from Matt Taibbi that should raise serious concerns about the stranglehold the company has on the economic markets:

"In a move set to infuriate and send many Zero Hedge readers over the top, the NYSE has taken action to make sure that nobody will henceforth be able to keep track of the complete dominance that Goldman Sachs exerts over the New York Zero Hedge Stock Exchange. This basically ends our weekly Program Trading updates disclosed every Thursday indicating that Goldman has singlehandedly captured all of NYSE's program trading."

-- Zero Hedge

I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier, but I urge readers to go over to Zero Hedge and check out this post about the NYSE's recent decision to change its procedures... to protect Goldman Sachs from bloggers like Zero Hedge!

This is complicated stuff (for people with no financial background, like me, it's nightmarish) and I have a longer thing about this coming out later. But the essence of this story is that Tyler Durden over at Zero Hedge has, for months, been complaining that Goldman has been manipulating the NYSE, in particular manipulating program trading in somewhat the same way (although perhaps not to the same extent) that they manipulated the commodities markets. In order to make his case -- and his theory has gained a lot of acceptance, to the point where Goldman had to respond to the allegations publicly -- he has been analyzing data the NYSE releases on program trading every week.

So what happened this week? The NYSE announced that it will no longer be releasing its weekly program trading data. This is quiet obviously a move designed to make it even more impossible to track what's going on in the NYSE and shield, in particular, Goldman Sachs. Let's hope there's a public uproar about this; Zero Hedge posted contact info for NYSE officials, and has urged readers to petition the exchange to restore the old rules in the name of transparency.

They plan to do this by July 10th, so it's important to call now. Let them know what you think of them making it impossible for anyone but insiders to know what's going on. From Zero Hedge:

This is a travesty, as well as a complete obliteration and a mockery of the move for transparency that the Administration, Regulators and Exchanges have been posturing they support.

We advise all readers to contact the provided staff on the memorandum and voice your incredulity with this brazen move to completely obfuscate Goldman's behind-the-scenes take over the world's biggest stock exchange.

Robert Airo, Senior Vice President, NYSE Euronext at (212) 656-5663 or

Aleksandra Radakovic, Vice President, NYSE Regulation at (212) 656-4144