Sorry, mate, now you're talking loco... Whenever people mount a high horse and start talking about financial stability, I start having strong doubts about their motives. The point is simple. For whatever reason, LIFFE and the powers that be are OK with RSJ doing what they're doing and making money out of it. So, in all honesty, hand on heart, you just have to answer a trivial question. If you, hypothetically, were RSJ and had an opportunity to make money the way they do, human traders be damned, would you? Or would you turn off all your wonderful machines because they're hurting a bunch of other people?
The point is that what they do is deemed legal. You don't like it, I don't particularly like it, but our opinions don't matter in the slightest. As to your question, let's not bring in parallels (burglary is a criminal offence). It's a simple question that you need to answer (which I asked already in the previous post). If you were given the ability to trade the way they do and it were completely legal, would you do it or not?
You can trade 100% of the volume in a market and not trade with yourself. Say total volume is 2 contracts traded for some market today. I bought one contract on the offer and sold it on the bid. No other trades today. I did 100% of the volume and never traded with myself. If the guy on the other side of both trades was the same person then they also did 100% of the volume and never traded with themselves either.
"The whole point is that they make money not by trading but by dominating/manipulating/bullying and intimidation." Interestingly, you obviously feel no need to behave as you demand that they do. Perhaps your problems stem from your obvious tendancy to not pay attention to what people say whilst you're going of half cocked, the fact that what they do is legal seems to have been entirely missed by you! Extremely unprofessional behavior on your part, perhaps it's time for some introspection! Regards Johno
Liffe is not in the business of keeping a certain class of traders alive. It´s the naturals (liquidity taking banks, insurance companies, etc. not the traders) who are liffe´s primary customers. As long as they don´t complain..
I wouldn't doubt my motives,I'm now starting to doubt your understanding of this situation and the future of theses markets if behaviour like this continues,what next? 95% RSJ,that will be easy to trade. Obviously you would be a total prick given the opportunity but after reading this it doesn't take a lot for you to be a total prick.
Do you work for the FSA? I doubt that so you are not in a position to speak with authority on the legalities of this situation,I on the other hand have heard they are being looked into,clearly someone thinks they are up to no good.
You are not making any sense,you are not in a position also to discuss the legalities of this,you don't know what the hell you're talking about,typical Australian really. If any of you think that one player having this much influence is OK then you are truly crazy because your careers will be a lot shorter than you think.Good Luck
Whether I am in fact a total prick with little understanding is completely immaterial... Similarly, I didn't express any opinions on any grandiose subjects like the future of the mkt. Most importantly, did I ever say that what RSJ do is good or bad? Again, what does your comment have to do with anything I said? I am not speaking with any sort of authority, but rather stating the following obvious fact. If they are operating, they are legal at the moment. All I want is for you to answer a simple specific question, no more, no less. Pls do, instead of opining on various other subjects.
"If they are operating, they are legal at the moment. " I think that this statement says it all. This is the level of thought process that we are dealing with. Staggeringly naive to put it politely. Could someone please explain the following case to me -I knew of a Eurex trader a few years back and he had a black box which broke the exchange rules (operated illegally) month after month. He was fined tens of thousands of Euros month after month and he just accepted this as a cost of trading. He was operating illegally -how can that be? I can't believe the general naivety in the responses to Beaker's post -it strikes me that they must come from people who haven't traded futures, and possibly haven't traded anything apart from baseball cards. LIFFE, if it had a long term plan, would be looking to do it's best to level the playing field for all participants, alogos, locals, whatever you want to call yourselves. By pandering to it's biggest clients, which are currently algos, it has created a monster which it is now totally beholden to. It has given the algos cost and informational advantages which has made it possible for them to wipe out most of the other market participants. In so doing they have drained liquidity from the markets and efficiency from their products pricing. I don't touch European products because I am interested in trading, not playing "dodge the algo" all day everyday. I wouldn't be surprised if there is something similar going on at Eurex. Anyway, I will certainly enjoy watching LIFFE disappear down the shit hole -and to all LIFFE employees -best of luck finding a job.