A must read white paper. Something more meaningful than the gazillion worthless posts on this site. Trying to raise the level a notch or two. http://www.themistrading.com/articl...ic_Equity_Trading_on_Wall_Street_12-17-08.pdf INTRODUCTION Retail and institutional investors have been stunned at recent stock market volatility. The general thinking is that everything is related to the global financial crisis, starting, for the most part, in August 2007, when the Volatility Index, or VIX, started to climb. We believe, however, that there are more fundamental reasons behind the explosion in trading volume and the speed at which stock prices and indexes are changing. It has to do with the way electronic trading, the new for-profit exchanges and ECNs, the NYSE Hybrid and the SECâs Regulation NMS have all come together in unexpected ways, starting, coincidently, in late summer of 2007.