In regards to #3 &amp; the central bank incentive structure.. I&#x27;ve seen this behavior for quite sometime. Really since QE3 started.<p>I&#x27;m an S&amp;P futures trader that trades many many thousands of contracts every single year &amp; hundreds per day based on real-time order flow. There is an algo that was introduced around QE3 that I have made a tremendous amount of money front running that I have called the &quot;Fed bot&quot;. Obviously, this is anecdotal &amp; I have no proof but this bot only ever trades in one direction... long. It has a clear &amp; obvious fingerprint in the market when it is activated &amp; absorbs a huge amount of inventory followed by market order offer sweeps.<p>Often times on an intraday pattern with a &quot;V&quot; shape where a bottom was put in is when I see this algo active. Admittedly, I&#x27;ve not seen it much in 2016 but it has not gone extinct. Typically when volatility is lower is when I see it in action &amp; it&#x27;s so obvious that I could show it to anybody watching in real-time.<p>It never seems to desire a &quot;best price&quot; type of fill, rather its intentions seem to be more like having a direct impact on the pricing mechanism of the market. That is evident by the sweeping market orders clearing out the offers resting in the order book &amp; immediately moving up liquidity on the bid to those new prices.<p>Could be conspiracy theory but I&#x27;ve been trading electronically for a long time in a lot of markets &amp; the S&amp;P since QE3 has a new long only player that has me suspicious.