As is, high frequency traders are 70% of all trades.

Post #377,529 by a6l6e6x 7/4/13 11:25:40 PM Reply	As is, high frequency traders are 70% of all trades. They say they provide liquidity, but they lie! They are a tax on the rest of us that trade now and then. It's like the mafia taking a cut. We need a law that says no unfulfilled bid (to buy or sell) can be withdrawn for at least a second after being made. Alex
Post #377,539 by crazy 7/5/13 11:06:58 AM Reply	A second? These trades can be acked in 50 MICROseconds. That's a MILLIONTH of a second. If the other guy ignores it you gotta jump to another exchange and issue it. A second is a loooooonnngggggggg time in this world. Might as well send your trade request via snail mail at that point.
Post #377,636 by a6l6e6x 7/6/13 8:40:16 AM Reply	Re: A second? You missed the point. These guys put up an offer and then withdraw it before it can be executed as a way to probe the interest of others. It's a Lucy and Charlie Brown football routine. Alex
Post #377,672 by CRConrad 7/6/13 8:24:46 PM Reply	And that's a big part of what's fucked up with the world. The ostensible motivation for the existence of share trading -- and for the existence of the limited-liability company in the first place, where share-holders are shielded from paying up (or being prosecuted) for the shit their property causes -- is economic efficiency. This whole system came to be, and is allowed to continue to exist, because it is allegedly a net boon to society and the economy as a whole. No, not your little game of Microsecond Monopoly -- the real economy, with real capitalism (https://en.wikipedia...wiki/Real_capital), where trading in shares is not an end in itself but just a means of measuring the value of the actual business the stock is more or less tenuously related to. So, tell me: How much do you think the actual value of the goods-on-hand, real estate and equipment, "human resources", plans and ideas in R&D, market position and "mindshare"... All the real and actual "value" of a share, how much does that fluctuate in a microsecond, d'yathink? Or, looking at it from another angle: For each of your bids, how much computing resources do you devote to computing the current or future value of each of these factors? A third, perhaps this is the satellite view: How well does your little game reflect the real world economy? The answer to all three: None what-so-fucking ever, of course. Which wouldn't really be a problem... If only you played your Microsecond Monopoly with actual Monopoly money. The problem is, of course, that you don't. You play with actual money, and in playing with it, you also fuck around with it. It's all connected: Corporate stock, pork belly futures, US or other national bonds, sub-prime mortgages... Lehman and Goldman Sachs and Bank of America; it's all just grist for the financial mill, and financial transactions of which your particular Microsecond Monopoly is but one part positively dwarf the real-world economy -- dwarf it, and occasionally crush it (like, for instance, they've been doing since 2008 and still are). The whole world economic system is in dire need of thorough reform, because it has gone meta up its own arse: Having the very unit of measure goods are valued in -- i.e, money -- itself become the main trading good, that just has to distort the whole system way out of shape. It's like having your butcher and grocer deal not just in meat and eggs and apples, but in pounds and dozens too. How is anyone going to know what the price ofa steak means, when the value of the units you weigh it in are also fluctuating due to trade in them?!? The world is fucked-up, and that Microsecond Monopoly you're about to start working in is a not insignificant part of the problem. So, on a personal level I still of course wish you the best of luck with your new job and all... But when you do that job, please do have the decency to be at least a little ashamed of how you make your living. -- Christian R. Conrad Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi (Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
Post #377,673 by Another Scott 7/6/13 9:46:30 PM Reply	Well said. The banksters have convinced regulators that slicing and dicing and bundling and hedging bits of paper and spreadsheet entries where they get a percentage is "financial innovation" and helps the economy. All of the evidence of the actions of the financial sector over the past 20 years or so indicates that is not true. Paul Volcker from December 2009 - http://blogs.wsj.com...ce-execs-experts/ Former Federal Reserve Chief Paul Volcker isnÂt afraid to speak his mind. At The Wall Street JournalÂs Future of Finance Initiative he tossed a few broadsides at a group of financial executives and policy makers. The group had gathered to come up with suggested reforms that would help prevent a future financial calamity. Mr. VolckerÂs verdict: ÂYour response I can only say, is inadequate. You have not come anywhere close.Â Mr. Volcker, who also chairs President ObamaÂs Economic Recovery Advisory Board, had a few other choice comments. Among them: ÂI wish somebody would give me some shred of evidence linking financial innovation with a benefit to the economy.Â Mr. VolckerÂs favorite financial innovation of the past 25 years? The ATM. ÂIt really helps people, itÂs useful.Â In addition, he railed against financial system compensation plans and said it had grown too large. His idea of reform? A return of something like Glass-Steagall. Commercial banks should be tightly regulated as well as protected. Trading, speculation and financial innovation should live outside those companies so that if they fail, they fail. The world will be a lot better off when those things become law (again). It's going to be a while though. :-( Shadow banking of course has spread throughout the world. In addition to China and India, Malaysia is having issues with it too - http://www.thestar.c...nking-crisis.aspx In China today, a major banking crisis is unfolding and shadow banksÂ overlending is said to be part of the cause. India has also taken steps to monitor its shadow banking activities after a sharp growth in such businesses over the recent years. The size of the global shadow banking system, on a conservative basis, has grown to over US$67 trillion from close to US$26 trillion about ten years ago and accounts for nearly half the size of the worldwide financial system, media reports indicate. But economists say that while these activities provide a valuable alternative to bank funding, it can pose large-scale risks to the economy from past experiences. In Malaysia, it isnÂt clear just how large the shadow banking system is as they are not captured in any formal banking statistics. But some estimates put it at easily several hundred billions the amount of money loaned out. Among the more prominent shadow banks are lenders such as the Government-owned Bank Rakyat Malaysia Bhd (Bank Rakyat) and public-listed Malaysia Building Society Bhd (MBSB). HereÂs a telling fact: both these institutions have been reporting phenomenal growth at a time when mainstream banks have been hit by the central bankÂs policies on responsible lending. I fear that too many people are too sanguine about the world banking system. The problems haven't been fixed and could blow up again at any time. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #377,679 by Ashton 7/7/13 2:45:31 AM Reply	Wish you could find a way to circulate this Widely: a tract? The McGuffin (I see) is: You've found a concise way to express the ABSURDITY of (and irrelevance to Real matters affecting actual people)--most of the koans of academic 'Econ', but without a single circular-logic error of the sort via which Econ theorists define their ... jello-nailed to a hot wall. clearly, concision is within the First Axiom of Econ 101: it is never permitted, especially in public. For me, the omnipresence of the doddering Greenspan--also, for Sooo fucking-Long--exemplified the effete allegiance of dueling-ordinary-grade economists ..to Any sort of cockamamie assortment of double-speak, so long as it remained within 'Theory' (almost anyone's it seems.) Just maybe this newest-Absurdity/μSec faux-'trades', especially when ridiculed as effectively as your opus: Fucking-well Ought to be The Last Straw ..before an authentic tar&feathering of, say the Top 100 Most-overpaid financiers found: away from home. OK we've got the method for Getting Attention--now then, where do we get the Power to match the $PowerOpposition of all these perps? Sic 'em!
Post #377,690 by crazy 7/7/13 2:03:09 PM Reply	Been there, done that But when you do that job, please do have the decency to be at least a little ashamed of how you make your living. I coded the data warehouse the was used to analyze the people to be marketed to, enabling the largest pioneering subprime lender to make billions and tank the US economy. It only took 3 core people to make it happen. I KNEW the loans were being given to people who didn't read and/or didn't care that they had a couple of years before the balloon payments were due, and I KNEW they were being rolled up into groups and sold to unsuspecting investors. The company was gaming the system, and all hell had to break loose sooner or later. Sooner or later the world had to run out of "greater fools". http://en.wikipedia....eater_fool_theory One of those loans went to my wife (before we were together), and she lost her house in the process. I KNOW the ramifications of what I do has far reaching effects, and personally feel it. I also knew we had competitors doing the same things and it was inevitable if we didn't do it, someone else would, until the rules changed. Hey, I TOLD you I was expecting to be hated over working in the industry.
Post #377,697 by Ashton 7/7/13 6:11:22 PM Reply	Have you considered.. Volunteering your unique/scene-of-the-Crimes information to.. Congress / any other logical / Powerful / (also Interested) Parties? (First-hand re-plays of the ... not mere hubris+cynicism, but Nation-smashing, premeditated financial mayhem: just might catalyze the sustained attention necessary next, to overhaul the juggernaut--here and elsewhere.) We Know that 'knowing-is-not-Enough; We See the pandemic of inertia/sloth and distraction of the short-attenton folk everywhere. This will remain True until Some of these Perps Are In Jails. Surely, we. all. know. This!? What 'They' need is: A Story, to coalesce-around and add-to. YOU could tell That story. [You COULD!--via previous tales told.] .. wins 1/0 Brownie Points, too--that's a Lot, however indeterminate
Post #377,719 by boxley 7/8/13 10:55:03 AM Reply	they already know congress criiters took money from his boss Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #377,768 by crazy 7/9/13 9:44:01 AM Reply	Yes, they did We had different lists to market to, and different lists to use as suppression to not market to. The suppression lists included dead people, prisoners, etc. It also included current customers, and the current customers were divided between regular and special. The special included shitload of people that got gift loans, very low interest, great terms, etc. Many members of congress were on that list. Public knowledge. Sorry Ash, I have no special knowledge to be used to reshape the world, I merely am trying to outlast its implosion.
Post #377,833 by Ashton 7/10/13 2:18:35 AM Reply	Yes, you do (have special knowledge) You can tell stories (and observe KISS.) And.. you were there (And besides, Muricans are fascinated seeing serial killers / or / banker-finance people in delicto flagrante.) er, qed "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." --Thomas Sowell

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