This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Even The Regulators Are Rigged: Prominent HFT Critic Stiglitz Blocked From SEC Panel
That markets are rigged, at both the macro level, through central banks, and micro, through HFTs, dark pools and purposeful market fragmentation, should be painfully obvious to everyone by now. But when even the regulators engage in "jury rigging", or in this case blocking prominent HFT-critic Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist (a prize which doesn't count for much on these pages but should - at least on paper - impress such statist cronies as the SEC), has been blocked from a government panel that will advise regulators on issues facing U.S. equity markets, it becomes clear as day that the rigging is not just in the markets: worse, it is openly involves the market's "regulator" and "enforcer."
“Financial markets are important and I have been worried about the way they have been working and whether they are serving the American economy,” Stiglitz said. “I was willing to serve. The next thing I knew, I was told you didn’t get it.”
According to Bloomberg, "Stiglitz’s rejection shows the partisan infighting that has bogged down Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White’s plan to set up a panel of experts to advise the agency on topics ranging from rapid-fire stock trading to dark pools."
Actually what it shows is that the SEC is a puppet of the wealthy and powerful HFT lobby, which has made a mockery of markets ever since the passage of Reg NMS, and which has been given free reign to manipulate anything and everything however it wishes: manipulation which, as described here first 6 years ago and most recently, by Michael Lewis, is now obvious to all investors and explains why the general public has decided to fully boycott the capital markets knowing quite well that it, and nobody else, would be the sucker when the Fed pulls the rug from underneath both carbon-based traders and vacuum tubes.
Stiglitz himself understands this, and as he said in a phone interview, "I think they may not have felt comfortable with somebody who was not in one way or another owned by the industry."
Not surprisingly, even the rigging of US capital markets is split according to political lines:
Republican Commissioner Daniel Gallagher opposed Stiglitz’s nomination in recent weeks as White sought to complete the list of participants, according to two people who asked to not be identified because the deliberations were private. Democratic Commissioner Luis Aguilar had pushed for Stiglitz, who has said high-frequency trading isn’t good for financial markets and should be curbed, possibly through a tax.
White said Jan. 3 that she will announce the members of the advisory market-structure committee in the coming days -- six months after she first proposed the idea together with a blueprint for renewed market oversight. Each of the five commissioners -- two Democrats, two Republicans and White, an independent -- was allowed to nominate one person to the panel. The commission then had to come to agreement on the final list, which is expected to have more than 15 members.
Gallagher declined to comment on the panel, as did Gina Talamona, a spokeswoman for White.
But that's not as bizarre as it gets: apparently none other than former Fed vice chairman, Roger Ferguson also wanted to be on a panel advising on, of all things, efficient equity markets.
Stiglitz, 71, wasn’t the only nominee that sparked wrangling. Earlier in the process, SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar, a Republican, opposed the involvement of TIAA-CREF Chief Executive Officer Roger Ferguson, according to two other people familiar with the matter. Ferguson, whose firm manages hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement savings, is a former Federal Reserve vice chairman. He is married to former SEC Commissioner Annette Nazareth, who now advises some of Wall Street’s biggest banks on regulatory issues.
Piwowar wouldn’t discuss specific nominees but said that he opposed “a former Federal Reserve governor” who was included in an early list of candidates prepared by the SEC’s staff. Mike Tetuan, a spokesman for TIAA-CREF, said Ferguson declined to comment.
“My concern was about the institution of the Federal Reserve and not any particular individual,” said Piwowar, who has complained about the Fed’s role regulating companies overseen by the SEC. “I didn’t want to give them more undue influence in areas in which they have no particular knowledge or expertise.”
That said the panel won't be staffed entirely by current and former employees of the biggest HFT firms: present will be Brad Katsuyama who singlehandedly cost BATS CEO William O'Brien his job after the latter lied on CNBC about his business model.
The panel is expected to include representatives of Wall Street brokerage firms and academic researchers. IEX Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brad Katsuyama and former Senator Ted Kaufman of Delaware are expected to be named to the panel, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Back in April, in a speech at the 2014 Financial Markets Conference hosted by the Atlanta Fed, Stiglitz said what Zero Hedge first posited 5 years earlier, namely that high-frequency trading makes markets less efficient while driving other investors to cloak their orders by placing them away from exchanges using dark pools, leading to less transparency, leading to premeditated market manipulation. Stiglitz' speech "Tapping the Brakes: Are Less Active Markets Safer and Better for the Economy?" can be found here.
Normally, we would be disgusted by this latest example of corruption, cronyism, and the realization that rigged markets can never become unrigged as long as the fallible and easily bribable human elements is present. At this point, however, there is little sense: with the macro manipulators, the world's central banks themselves, increasingly boxed in and with zero options left, what happens next not even the algos can prevent.
- 9527 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


Is anyone surprised?
Regulatory Capture.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn-Cab0XRlw
Try our new iRig v1.1. Guaranteed to be 'better' than the iRig v1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI6tBwVjyOY
Katsuyama is on (IEX). He's gonna have to do some heavy lifting, though, all alone.
And besides, it's just an ADVISORY panel- they're not making regs. They're just there to make it look like it's legit all the stuff the regulators already know they're going to do (or not do).
Without HFT every exchange in the country goes tits-up for lack of billable fees (volume). You think they're gonna let that happen?
Yeah, but normally they put on a show Royal comission,or Presidential comission with token rebels.
Let it marinate until the noise blows over, and then ignore it.
Showtime is over it seems.
At least we had a straight shooter back in the day when Bart Chilton was on the job.
Well Heavens to Betsy! And here all along I thought it was just the EPA banning qualified scientists form testifying about or ruling on environmental matters because they have all the folks who've already decided "da troof" in the EPA as is, already, again.
Yes Martha, we can make gold from lead. No, it's not quite as good as it seems. It's highly radioactive, darling.
What an idea!
Sell it in Fukushima!
A New American Export Good!
Fucking right. Shit is sliding downhill at warp speed. I would like to see both Stiglitz and William Black turn up the heat!
Here is Stiglitz on the bailouts:
http://dailybail.com/home/nobel-laureate-dr-joseph-stiglitz-says-the-gei...
Go the LSE site and search out Stiglitz's lectures. Stiglitz is the only man making any sense since... donkey's years.
It's right there in plain sight.
Reg NMS... Now Manipulate Stocks
They need to be able to say, we had a panel of experts and none of them say this coming. It was unavoidable.
If you were anywhere near a terminal in November 2007 when REG NMS was in it's infancy, you noticed a difference right away. It was almost impossible to be on the inside bid without being pennied or 10th of a penny in front of you. You would watch stocks start trading at prices from 0 to 100 dollars in flash moves all over the place. There is no real intraday price of any stock anymore. They can move any stock to any price at any given time.
The big investment houses were having orders run over by daytraders and couldn't compete. They were losing too much money from the skim they invented. They weren't going to lose control of a major cash cow. So they came up with .....Reg NMS
Reg NMS was a goal of taking back the markets from day traders. By using ECN's and being able to back away from trades. Markets makers used to have to show and ID and honor that bid or offer. Now they show 1000 shares using ECN's on a bid and is will dissapear and only fill a few 100 shares at that price and fill the rest pennies below in increments. Almost like they could see the orders coming. This is still happening today. The 50 cent to a few points reversal on long or short positions are getting squeezed in both directions intraday. Stock jump around without any logic or reason.
nce REG NMS was in place all they needed was the speed.. HFT..since it's inception it was designed to take profits and wipe out daytraders.
Come 2010 the software writers and algo geeks were making such big bonus they went off and opened their own firms, now the joke was on the investment house and big banks. Same guys who wrote and designed the house algo's were now gaming the same systems they designed for the banks.
TPTB are not amused.
If you a quant, life insurance is a must right now.
Its only business, nothing personal, as they say.
Not a quant.
Just goes to show that the liberals (from civil society) are closer to the truth in Congress than the ZH mentors...Speaks volumes.
This.
Vertical integration rigging bitches.
Try our new iRig N+1. Guaranteed to be 'better' than the iRig N.
Egan Jones was big enough of a datapoint for me.
So fake liquidity still is better than real liquidity?
Not today apparently.
Why not say that the reason markets got hammered today is because...well, they are free markets! They don't like non existent money (debt) and thus will "panic" not towards a bailout but towards the ability to pay period (a real recovery.)
This whole "levered long zero" (hft has zero money behind all that trading) is still..ZERO.
That says to me creating a "debt ponzi" is asking for trouble in the form of an outright default. Now over lay that with equities at nosebleed levels "and the Bucky following suit"...and, well...where is the taxpayer again?
There's your "muppet" folks.
If this is the leading edge of a forty percent correction...
And the USD/Swissy trade is a lot of fun.
Apparently that SEC ship don't sail without proper rigging.
once again, BULLISH!!!
The techncial name is called "Regulatory Capture" ... now stick that in your T/A.
IMO , Stiglitz should be relieved he won't have to participate in this absurd kabuki theater .
probably no skeletons in closet to hold over him ... say what is jeffrey epstein up to these days ?? ...
He trying to splain all this teen prostitute bizness with Prince Andrew
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/01/05/the-prince-and-the-sex-offender-prince-andrew-and-jeffrey-epsteins-mysterious-relationship/
Sheet! Big Banana Bill Slick Wet Willy Clinton is right in there with those two.
Hello, Hillary?
Why didn't you get that divorce? This shit woulda been vindication and an example of your good judgement.
Hill & Billary aren't married, they are the two co-conspirators at the head of a crime syndicate.
What each has on the other is what holds 'em together.
Assuming he has a spotless record, the only thing this stink bomb of an investigation would do is discredit him, or
guilt by association.
manipulation which, as described..via ZH.. here first 6 years ago..
Show of hands...who thought they could pull this off as long as they have? Show of hands...how many more bunnies are up their asses?
I couldn't believe the housing insanity lasted as long as it did... at this point, NOTHING is beyond belief.
We're in BIZZARROWORLD where up is down and right is wrong - where 'reality' is whatever TPTB decide.....
Listen guys.... when I was with my neo-con and Progressive golf buds this weekend and the Progressive boasted about the size of Opjama's balls slapping additional sanctions on the Norks because of The Interview and the neo-con stating point blank that he and his wifey had watched The Interview as a strike for American Freedom to prove that no little Pansyassed Commie Bastard Nork was gonna censor his movie watching, I about threw up and decided that this shit's gonna go on one hell of a lot longer than anybody thinks is possible. Especially the consensus here on the Hedge. Don't mean 'nuffin's fucked up.... just that the Band-Aids over the cancerous lesions will make do for quite a while longer.
Why do you hang out with such people?
Why do you play such a dumb-ass game?
I'm surprised at you!
in 2010 i thought they could keep it going another 2 years ... max
amazed at the machinations in the interim
BUT ... i'm still convined that the longer the con continues ... the bigger the inevitable splash
If they kicked the can till 2014, 2024 does not seem like a longshot by far. This bitch aint going down until every last one of us has been juiced by one of those War of the Worlds tripod alien things, physically or figuratively.
Every year since '10, I've been saying to my folks and friends, "next year man..."
LOL at all of us. "Fly, you fools."
Yorp ....... no question.
Oh wait, I do have one.
Are those tripod things painful? Do they use KY? How far up is their elbow?
<--- wall street crime center is biggest
<--- D.C. crime center is biggest
DC is supposed to keep NY on the Straight & Narrow. Clearly they are not.
Just as clearly.. they are on NY's payroll. Anything else we need to know? Besides when the MF Guillotines start rolling? (rhetor. Q)
DC and Wall Street are in it together.
Wall Street has bought DC. Look for the organ grinder, not the monkey.
Actually they're one and the same. That is the definition of fascism (marrige of corporate and government power).
He Tyler! Remember the BP oilspill where you had a article about the effect on UK pension funds as the dividend came into danger because of the fines?
BP just cut it’s divivdend because of the oil slump!
I guess the people now are going to feel that gift that keeps on giving!
Cutting dividends will be the story of 2015. That and....Gold is bad because it has no yield.
One look at GE says "sell" then.
This is still a fully functional free market folks...with both greed AND fear.
Now that "real liquidity" is collapsing (oil, natural gas, etc) why would anyone want to hold "fake" (hft, non existent liquidity) monies?
mary jo, what a bowser
"in this case blocking prominent HFT-critic Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist"
stiglitz needs to count his blessings ... and not complain
the alternative was for him to be placed on the board ... and then introduced to a tall building ... with open windows
C'mon, you guys!...You know this sucker is ready to blow any day now!...CRIMINALS, are seriously, running out of gimmicks!!
do you smell it? smells like the circus tent! got a favorite clown?
Heath Ledger by a mile
Luna,
The clown in Stephen King's IT.
The eater of souls - hopefully banker souls....
What do you expect with Moe Howard running the SEC?
Somehow, I feel Katsuyama is being set up
Perhaps you're forgetting that Goldman is part owner of IEX? Or that they had senior partners talking with Michael Lewis when he was researching his book?
We need more assassins now.
The jmafia is getting more blantant and obvious in their dealings. Considering what they have been able to get away with this is no surprise. At times it also seems they are aware of the increased likelyhood of a trouble maker getting air time and are willing to use their control of the govt to prevent this even when it can be easily seen (by the few who care to notice). Their queltly putting in place the aparatus to crush any movement or even an uprising has not been noticed by the masses but will become known when it is forcefully used against a public group.
"Even The Regulators Are Rigged"
I thought this is why it is all rigged.
Things have never been better!!
'Rigged' is just another way of spelling 'rugged' and 'rugged' means stable!
Hooo-rah
we're all saved!
Only foxes are allowed to be in charge of the hen house.
We officially made some folks mistaken (the old keyniesian priests get fucked hard).
William Dudley of the NY Fed is one the kingpins.
Yellen's market manipulation brain.
Stiglitz? Hell no! We want Blythe Masters there. Then we can burn down the house, kind of like they do in the Ukraine.
Well the next one up is rigging the news, but I think we are already there on some of that as well. But I swear once you can spin up a jounobot like Long Tail, oh it's scary as the possibilities are endless. Jounobots if used for telling stories about boring data are ok but when you spin them up to impress the bots...we know what news feeds are and no more to be said there. I made this post over a year ago and it has a video of the Long Tail bot and the thing even writes books and the creator put over 10,000 of them the bot wrote for sale on Amazon...the bots live amongst us...
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/12/quantitated-justification-for-believing.html
It's video #2 on the bot "quantitated justifications" for things not true with the spin on the parameters that can be programmed as well. So ok, what do the stock bots need to hear today could be the question...this leads to another big problem too and that's the fact that people can't tell the difference between virtual world values and the real world anymore at times either. I call it "The Grays"...as people base decisions on some virtual value that comes smashing down on the real world..commodities are perhaps a good example there on how out of control trading can fry things up for sure.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.fr/2014/03/virtual-worlds-real-world-we-have....
Ok. but now on to news that really matters. Did you hear the Jenner's are starting their own reality show?
No, but did you hear that Bruce Jenner had a penis lift??
Stiglitz is an IMF fucktard crony admitted socialist like the rest, don't be fooled.
He got his prize writing papers fretting and scheming ways to make the public pay the international debts of sovereigns, aka central banks. He was also an advisor for the disgraced failure of Obamanomics while simultaneously admitting privately in 2009 to the elites, along with Larry Summers, that it wasn't going to work and would create very high unemployment and a horrible economy for at least a decade in USA.
He 'Grubered' everyone publicly while admitting the truth privately - we just don't have videos on him. Fuck Stiglitz
Nicely Done
We had to rig some markets ....
The SEC fully understands how distracting it would be to have somebody on the panel actually making useful recommendations which would then require them to quit watching Porn for a few minutes and do something constructive. Now we can't have that, can we??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ps4HkdqaQ0
regulatory capture......
curbed through a tax ! ha!
gensler at the CFTC, now that was an example of rigged...... cheese eatin little rat, talking down to congress like "oh, its sooooooooooo complicated and exotic and esoteric you'd never understand"
anybody remember what jesse jackson threatened to do to obama for "talking down to black folks?"
that's what gensler's fate should be for talking down to congress(cept he ain't got no balls or ballsack just his pretty little pink taint oi vey), let alone talking down to the american public. gensler sofa king takes the cake for examples of rigged.
the punishment: gensler is court ordered to use larry summers nose as a butt plug... 5 year sentence.
they apologized, and said kim kardashian, and Corzine took the last two allotted seats.
Give me a break! Is this kind of thing a surprise to anyone that doesn't watch CNBC 24\7?? This is just another example of the rot that has become pervasive in the USA in every leadership and regulatory agency, from the congress, the judiciary, the executive branch and agencies like the FDA, DOE and Department of Agriculture to name just a few (let's not forget everyone's favorite, the DHS).
One thing that would go a long way to change things (granted this is not really related to the case in this article on the SEC) would be to pass a law that basically states that anyone that works in a particular agency or branch of government is prohibited for a period of five (5) years from taking a position in any private enterprise that is directly or indirectly affected by either the legislation or rules and regulations passed or enforced by the agency of government the person was involved in. Furthermore anyone that is involved in any branch of government or any governmental agency should be outright banned from ANY lobbying activity for the same five year period upon leaving their governmental position. Of course the chances of any laws being passed along these lines are exactly ZERO.
Regulation is the rig.