HFT

It's not easy being a millionaire in the New Normal.

"I think we have to blame central bank intervention. How can we not? It’s all around the world. They’re setting interest rates at a ridiculous level. Quantitative easing is distorting all sorts of prices of assets. How do you price things anymore when you have such a giant manipulator out there?"

The week that passed has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride for many nervous investors. And for some: a realization that the once hyped, hawked, and levered Billion dollar babies can indeed “come off the rails.” Turning the once joyride into something more in common with a free fall into the abyss. However, you’re told not too worry: For if you loved the ride when the prices were higher, then surely you should be ecstatic to “ride again” since the new ticket prices are clearly “on sale!”

Q: How do you make a small fortune on Wall Street?

A: Start with a large fortune.

~ old investing adage

We have never, ever, seen more trades per second in stocks than at the peak of yesterday's post-FOMC reaction...

The financial markets don't just dominate the economy - they now control everything.

There are three financial hurricanes hurtling towards our country and most people are oblivious to the coming catastrophe. The time to prepare is now, not when the hurricane warnings are issued.

The news of Navinder Sarao's arrest, the scapegoat for all that is broken with the world's equity markets, may have come, gone and be largely forgotten, but while the CFTC is happy to have washed the corruption and incompetence off its hands by destroying the career of one insignificant trader (whatever happens, redirect public attention from the HFT firm that just came public and boasted of one trading loss day in 6 years) Sarao is facing decades in prison. And, what is worse for the alleged mastermind of the May 2010 flash crash, he won't even be able to enjoy a few weeks in quasi-freedom. Why? Because this lonely 36 year old, who "crashed" the entire market 5 years ago from his parents' basement (literally), can't even afford bail.

London police have arrested a former currency trader in connection with what is being described as a "global" fraud worth more than £30 million.  

If the DOJ and CFTC is going to be consistent, then they have to indict the entire financial community from the CME, Exchanges, Brokers, Institutions, Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, Management Funds and High Frequency Trading Firms.

It’s official: all the markers of manias both past and present have now been surpassed.

October 15^th, 2014 wasn`t a market crash!

Today, we find precisely how and why Sarao was singled out: he not only ratted out the parasitic trading strategies of the real culprits behind the broken market, the massive HFT firms (such as Virtu which just went public just a day before the Sarao charges were filed) which gave the "regulators" no choice: one of them had to be put away for good, but found a way to capitalize on the algos' stupidity, and actually make money by beating them at their own game.  As such, regulators and exchanges such as the CFTC and CME had no choice but arrest him and prevent him from trading ever again!

Think you too could "Sarao" the markets? Step right up and test your 'spoofing' skills...

"One day while Sarao is busy trying to trick the U.S. stock market into falling, the market collapses, more sensationally than it has ever collapsed. And instead of digging some hole in Hounslow in which he might hide for a decade or so, or fleeing to Anguilla, where he has squirreled away his profits, he stays in his parents’ home and keeps right on spoofing the U.S. stock market -- and then is shocked when people turn up to accuse him of wrongdoing. He’s not some kind of exception to the standard operating procedure in finance. He’s a parody of it."