Want something scary? Dark pools (mucky waters for upstairs trades)! Bullet dodging, round-trip trading, churning! High-frequency trading! Flash orders!! And the list (we can only assume) goes on.
Some are too big to fail. We feel too small to succeed...
If the US numbers are not doing it for you (and you're not afraid of heights), have a look at the big picture: the current global public debt! (If this is global debt, who's buying it? The martians??)
(Scared the living daylights out of you yet?)
B o o ! ! Happy Halloween!
An interesting article on cyber-trading:
ReplyDeleteWho's afraid of high-frequency trading?
• High-frequency trading now accounts for 60 percent of total U.S. equity volume
• Lotus Capital Management LP of New York earlier this year realized that a competitor was beating it to a trade it had programed by exactly 3 microseconds, day after day. The loss meant Lotus was forfeiting about $1,000 in daily revenue on that particular trading strategy
• A high cancellation rate for orders has sparked suggestions that the algorithms are deployed to glean information from pending order flows, and then based on that knowledge, race ahead to scoop up trades. More than 90 percent of orders submitted to the New York Stock Exchange by high-frequency firms are canceled, according to an NYSE Euronext (NYX.N) official
• The market "is not trading on fundamentals anymore. It makes no sense, it's very frustrating for traders," said Alan Valdes, director of floor trading at NYSE member Kabrik Trading. "It's all programs."
• et pour la bonne bouche (from Jean-Marie Eveillard):
"If in a good mood, I say Wall Street is nothing but a vast promotion machine. If not, it's a den of thieves."...