HFT through the years

A chart shows the ascent of high-speed algorithmic trading, a phenomenon that is unnerving the financial markets.

 

Wheres the chart?

 

And descent in trading over the phone or using floor runners as well as horse carriages

 

HFTs took his chart out in a flash.







HFT will blow small traders away!

 

Unfortunately, Bill de Blasio, current frontrunner in the NY mayoral election, plans to ban horse carriages. I guess we'll just have to use pedicabs instead.

 

HFT is driving out other sources of liquidity by always be top of que. This is the stupidest and riskiest idea I have ever seen. There is no reason to leave passive orders in. No wonder more flash crashes happen

 

Please tell us how canceling 1000 orders for every fill is beneficial to the markets?

 

Market is a meeting place where traders meet and do exchange. It is not created to benefit someone or as a charity operation or as Wal_Mart with customer service that accepts complaints and returns. It is about money and it is zero sum game.

 

you are wrong on so many ends:

a) Most modern democracies clearly and in writing do not seek to allow "markets" to operate in their jurisdictions but to allow FAIR and ORDERLY markets. That means that there is an equal opportunity for all market participants. There should not be exchanges or trading venues that disseminate price data to privileged parties before everyone else receives the same data, there should not be any front running (which is in fact illegal and yet practiced daily). There also should not be predatory algorithms whose sole purpose of existence is to disrupt an orderly market in exchange for extracting money. If you say a market's purpose is to foster exchange and transfer risk (which indeed is the core purpose of a financial exchange) then we should not allow elements that feed on everyone else without really every absorbing or providing risk.

b) The market is CLEARLY not zero sum. Maybe certain asset classes but stocks, for example are not a zero sum game. They reflect market perceived value of companies and if it was a zero sum game then you would imply that CEOs or anyone in corporations cannot add nor create value. We should then pay every CEO a 50k annual salary in exchange for clocking in and out.

 

Agree with a) and my response was only to one participants claim that cancelling 1000 orders per one fill is unjustified - how do you know which cancellation is "good" or "bad"

On b) we are talking different things; I talk about trading where money is being made or lost from available pool of liquidity and not from the investing perspective. Investing and trading are separate things.