we all know of harris brumfield - tt /xtrader ceo as well as being a bond trading gorilla. but i just had a thought concerning all this md trader patent action thats been going down..... as we know, he wants everyone who uses his md trader ladder concept to pay him 10c (or whatever) per r/t for EVERY licensed platform (user) that uses his technology - i.e. most of the futures traders out there. the only way he can surely get an understanding of this is to get a line in on the order flow thats being created on these platforms - in other words, see everyones order flow, and thus SEE ALL RESTING ORDERS IN THE MARKET!! am i either.... 1/ some conspiracy nut 2/ ignorant of how the tt platform works 3/ had too much sunshine 4/ one smart cookie who wont be trading on any platform that sells out to the evil one. 5/ other - see comments below....
Don't you think tt can see all the resting orders now? Do you really think it would be that big of an advantage?
im not 100% on whether tt can see all the tt resting orders - i got the impression that orders sit on a tt server - God knows why they dont sit on your brokers server. isnt there some gateway between the tt server and the brokers server to ensure youre not over committed or something - making it feasible for the orders to sit on tt (as the broker is still aware of your position)? i seem to remember market hacker talking about this and he seems to know a lot about tt and its workings. this is one of the advantages of tt i believe, and one of the areas that makes it faster on the execution side. as for the advantages of seeing resting orders, yes i do think thats a HUGE advantage, especially if 50%+ of all volume is going through your servers as harris claims. ever heard of front running?? he cant do that in the pit as much - so he sets up tt so he can do it on the screen. this is one reason why the turtles only ever used market orders - because they didnt want the broker running their stops.
Yeah, it seems that TT has a lot of transparency w.r.t. order placement. I don't see how the $.10 vig would alter the situation. I think Harris is modeling himself after this guy: Hank Scorpio
To my knowledge Harris is not trading anymore or as much since he has been involved with TT. His brother Hardy is trading and is one of the biggest 10yr traders screen and pit. I highly doubt he looks to see where all resting orders are on the screen, I think ethically they are a little more responsible than that. The vig they want to charge is because there are so many guys that have violated the patents and financially they haven't been rewarded for TT's innovation. Remember, Harris has a bunch of money tied into TT and as of yet has made zero profit. The exchanges are making huge money and he isn't, TT was essential in the increase of volumes, something doesn't make sense. There is definitely not a conspiracy of that magnitue occuring.
Quality post, Arb!! Better material than 75% of ET posts (and 100% of my own!) BTW, Eurex orderbook and POSITIONS were compromised by the big Euro-banks pre-1998 IMO. Tell Harris to call me if he needs a hug, poor chap! Now I'm off to the hammock district! (I prefer Hammock, Hammocks, Hammocks).
I also think that I personally funded the research and development of MD trader with the money he stripped off of my back like bacon in 1999!!
thanks for the reply mcurto. interesting you mention ethics though. is front running really unethical? after all, futures trading is all about taking money off of others using some sort of edge. there is a whole industry built on front running and stop running - its called fx! all that besides, does tt have the facility to see all resting orders - even those on 3rd party platforms that have licensed md trader technology? this isn't some harris witch hunt here. although im no fan of the patent, im just curious.....
Yes, both TT and eCBOT can see which orders have been put into their system. I doubt though that Harris can simply log in from his computer and go to the 10year contract and see all working orders separately, on the other hand the CBOT market operations can see every single order that has been placed into their system TT or any other front-end. If he could see this my guess is he would attempt to front-run.
If you were getting 10c a contract with no risk, why would you bother trading. It's more likely that TT will continue to expand their partner program, becoming a back-end provider and simply capturing more of the order flow by progressively adding exchanges and new broker clients. In three years time, you may find them offering as many exchanges as IB as well as providing managed and reliable backing-end infastructure to brokers compatible with all the major front ends. Ninja, Trademaven, X trader etc. Runningbear