tyb
>>75187 pb TITAN25 visits Tonopah Test Range
E-4B “Doomsday Plane” Just Made A Highly Unusual Visit To Secretive Tonopah Test Range Airport
Seldom, if ever, do E-4Bs visit Tonopah Test Range Airport in Nevada and, in this case, the Secretary of Defense might have been onboard.
Pro-tip" dhey were
In a highly unusual move, one of the U.S. Air Force’s E-4B Nightwatch aircraft, also known as National Airborne Operations Centers, or NAOCs, touched down today at Tonopah Test Range Airport (TTR), one of the most famous secretive aircraft operating locations in the United States, only surpassed by nearby Area 51. What might have triggered this highly unusual visit is puzzling, to say the least, but it seems it could (me must stress could) have been related to a possible visit to the facility by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III.
Confirmation of the E-4B’s arrival into TTR was provided using data available from open-source flight data website ADS-B Exchange, with the jet, serial number 74-0787, using the TITAN25 callsign usually assigned when the Secretary of Defense is onboard.
Secretary of Defense always travels on Nightwatch when leaving CONUS
Widely referred to as “Doomsday Planes,” the Air Force’s four existing E-4Bs are based on Boeing 747 airframes and are most famous for providing a robust and survivable airborne command post that offers a platform for the President of the United States, under a framework known as the National Command Authority (NCA), to initiate a nuclear strike. The planes have other functions, too, including directing large-scale military operations or a response to other major contingencies, such as major natural disasters. Also among their roles, the Nightwatch jets are often employed as a means of transporting the Secretary of Defense to foreign countries.
A C-37A — a Gulfstream V used as a VIP transport by the Air Force — appears to have possibly landed at TTR about an hour before the E-4, although it appears to have turned off its transponder before touching down there, so the final part of its flight cannot be conclusively determined. see here: >>75314 SAM865 and it departed Lackland AFB San Antonio after an overnight
It’s notable that the Air Force’s latest Red Flag large-force combat exercise is now underway at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, which might have prompted a visit by the Secretary of Defense to the nearby TTR. Red Flag 21-3, which is making use of the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), is a U.S. forces-centric version of the exercise and is employing F-117 Nighthawks in an aggressor role.
Usually, a press team will be is onboard the E-4B if it’s taking the Secretary of Defense on an overseas tour, and the arrival of such an entourage at the notoriously secretive TTR would be a significant event in itself. If press were onboard, they could have been told to wait on the aircraft with shades drawn or, possibly, they were included whatever went on there. But considering the extreme security at TTR, that would be really a major shift in access.
moar
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41669/e-4b-doomsday-plane-just-made-highly-unusual-visit-to-secretive-tonopah-test-range-airport
99-6143 USAFSOC C-32B had a ground stop at Fort Campbell (second stop in 24 hours here) and heading west-departed Eglin earlier.
This AC departed Eglin to MacDill yesterday then ground stops at Bragg, Ft. Campbell and NAS Oceana before returning to Eglin
morning B
Dunno but caught it all as it habbened.
Certainly a high level meeting took place cause dat other AC (SAM865) went in prior and left around same time.
Getting the i's dotted and t's crossed prior to heading over to Singapore, Vietnam, P.I.
>>75539 pb
SAM949 USAF G5 departing Boeing Field, Seattle WA after an overnight and east-inbound from Austin Int'l ground stop yesterday and left from JBA earlier in da day
Judge Refuses To Identify Five Market Participants Accused Of VIX Manipulation
Long before meme stocks came along and reddit discovered what Zero Hedge readers had known since 2013, namely that to outperform the market all one has to do is go long the most shorted stocks, there were inverse VIX trades and the relentless moneymaking juggernaut that was shorting volatility, i.e. collecting stacks of cash in front of a dormant volatility steamroller. But on Feb 5, 2018 the steamroller woke up with a vengeance, and shortly after the close, the infamous volmageddon event took place when a handful of the most popular inverse VIX strategies crashed from near record highs to zero in a manner of minutes as ETN liquidation triggers were activated, sending the VIX briefly to record highs and wiping out billions in value and leaving countless retail investors stunned and facing total losses.
Yet while to retail investors losses were in the hundreds or, at most, thousands of dollars (recall this was in the pre-stimmy stage when people cared about their money), some hedge funds got completely wiped out. One among them was LJM Partners, a Chicago-based fund that lost $446.8 million in one day from the market moves, wiping out 86.5% of its assets in seconds. And so LJM and more than two dozen other investors and fund managers sued over the next year to recover losses, claiming unidentified market participants that rigged the index “repeatedly posted and immediately canceled” tens of thousands of quotes for S&P 500 options, whose prices are used to calculate the VIX. The plaintiffs, understandably furious at the events of Feb 5, claiming that unidentified market participants manipulated the VIX by posting S&P 500 options quotes that only stayed in the order book for milliseconds, not long enough for anyone to trade against but enough time for them to be incorporated into the value of the VIX. That technique, known as “flashing” and popularized back in 2009 first by this website, was unrelated to any legitimate positions the unidentified market participants held or wished to hold, but successfully manipulated the price of S&P 500 options and futures contracts, LJM claimed, even though the CBOE which is the Chicago-based owner of the VIX and the exchange where S&P 500 options trade, has repeatedly dismissed claims of manipulation of the index. And while LJM has yet to recover any funds, on Friday the defunct fund suffered another setback, when a federal judge refused to identify five market participants accused in the lawsuit of manipulating the VIX index.
US District Judge Manish S. Shah, during a telephone conference Friday in Chicago, said the plaintiffs had failed to provide enough evidence of actual manipulation to justify revealing the names of the market participants, who were identified only by code names in exchange records. “Plaintiffs have not demonstrated good cause” for the disclosure, said Shah, who had earlier authorized the release of exchange data to help them make their case. “Rather than specific allegations of manipulation, plaintiffs’ complaints offer a menu of what they characterize as potentially manipulative conduct that may have occurred on February 5 and 6, 2018,” the market participants said in a court filing.
While a clear setback to those funds who were short the VIX and lost all (or even more than all) of their principal, the court decision was striking because there is no reason why the five VIX trading counterparties - whether they manipulated the index or not - should not be named. After all, what's the damage if they indeed did not manipulate the index as the judge has found? So here's a thought: the judge refused to name the VIX "counterparties" not out of concerns about "good cause" or exposing trade secrets, but because if the judge had revealed the identities of those trading the VIX, it would have had a profound adverse impact on market confidence. Which can only mean that among those "trading" the VIX were none other than the Fed, via its market-facing entity, the New York Fed trading desk, or even more likely, the Fed's market proxy - Citadel. Incidentlally, this is something we joked about some years ago....... only to see a judge throttle a lawsuit precisely over this matter due to fears what it would do trader sentiment and confidence if it emerged that a central bank is actively involved in trading the most important market index, the VIX.
1 of 2
2 of 2
And speaking of the Fed shorting volatility, don't take our word for it: here is one Jerome Powell, long before he became the Fed chair, discussing the Fed's short volatility position during the October 23-24, 2012 FOMC meeting, as we first reported several years ago.
I have concerns about more purchases. As others have pointed out, the dealer community is now assuming close to a $4 trillion balance sheet and purchases through the first quarter of 2014. I admit that is a much stronger reaction than I anticipated, and I am uncomfortable with it for a couple of reasons. First, the question, why stop at $4 trillion? The market in most cases will cheer us for doing more. It will never be enough for the market. Our models will always tell us that we are helping the economy, and I will probably always feel that those benefits are overestimated. And we will be able to tell ourselves that market function is not impaired and that inflation expectations are under control. What is to stop us, other than much faster economic growth, which it is probably not in our power to produce? [W]hen it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. It is about $1.2 trillion in sales; you take 60 months, you get about $20 billion a month. That is a very doable thing, it sounds like, in a market where the norm by the middle of next year is $80 billion a month. Another way to look at it, though, is that its not so much the sale, the duration; its also unloading our short volatility position.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/judge-refuses-identify-five-market-participations-accused-vix-manipulation
This from May 28, 2019 when the current 'manager' of the VIX left. He (Potter) was brought in solely to manage the VIX-see cap #2.
The Head Of The Plunge Protection Team Is Quitting
Back in the summer of 2012, a historic if largely under-reported change took place at the New York Fed, when Brian Sack, the former head of the Fed’s Markets group, also known as the Plunge Protection Team’s trading arm, was replaced by former UCLA economist, Simon Potter. Potter’s arrival was most notable for not only taking over the Fed’s QE baton from Sack, currently a director at quant trading giant DE Shaw, but because his arrival also marked the start of a multi-year crash in the VIX future, which collapsed the month Potter took over and has hit ever steeper lows ever since (with the exception of the occasional VIX explosion).
moar
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-head-of-the-plunge-protection-team-is-quitting/
RCH874T USAF C-17 Globemaster departed MCB Quantico nw and heading to Allentown for Not AF1 Joe's visit on Wednesday
Biden to bring infrastructure sales pitch to Pennsylvania
Joe Biden will head to the Allentown area Wednesday as he fights for passage in the Senate of a nearly $1 trillion infrastructure measure that a bipartisan group of senators brokered with him. The White House is billing Biden's visit to Macungie as a stop to “emphasize the importance of American manufacturing, buying products made in America, and supporting good-paying jobs for American workers.” It gave no other details of the visit — Biden's second to Pennsylvania so far this month after he went to Philadelphia last week to speak on voting rights.
https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article252981098.html#storylink=cpy
SLOT74 USAFSOC C-32B nw from ground stop at RAF Mildenhall and appeared heading nw over Romania.
This AC departed Spokane Int'l Airport yesterday after an overnight and then a ground stop/refuel at Bangor, ME prior to heading across the pond.
It's trace drops heading se at the same point it appeared today..over Romania
>>75701 pb
99-6143 USAFSOC C-32B on descent for NAS North Island from Ft. Campbell, KY ground stop
SAM934 USAF C-40B departed JBA sw-MacDill AFB most likely
SAM955 USAF G5 en from JBA
SAM949 USAF G5 continues to JBA from Boeing Field Seattle, WA depart and overnight >>75710
Tropical storm Nepartak approaches Japan
Tropical storm Nepartak is moving north over the sea southeast of Japan and threatening to pass near or make landfall in eastern Japan or the Tohoku region on Tuesday. Meteorological officials are warning that the major storm could bring strong winds, heavy rain and high waves. They say Nepartak was heading north on Sunday at 6 p.m., local time, near Minamitorishima Island of the Ogasawara Islands at 15 kilometers per hour.
It has an atmospheric pressure of 992 hectopascals at its center, with a maximum wind speed of 72 kilometers per hour and maximum gusts of 108 kilometers per hour. Winds of more than 54 kilometers per hour are blowing within a 700-kilometer radius southeast of the center, and within a 390-kilometer radius northwest of the center. Weather forecasters say the storm is growing stronger as it moves northwest. Weather officials forecast that the maximum rainfall in the 24 hours through Tuesday afternoon will be 100 to 200 millimeters on the Pacific side of Tohoku; 100 to 150 millimeters in Kanto-Koshin and on the Sea of Japan side of Tohoku; and 50 to 100 millimeters in Hokuriku.
A maximum wind speed of 72 to 86 kilometers per hour and maximum gusts of 90 to 126 kilometers per hour are expected with rough seas on Tuesday.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20210725_21/
SAM955 USAF G5 on final at Westchester Cty Airport, NY