I guess, in a way, this site owes much of its success to Tweetie for Mac. I woudn’t have been able to get to know developers, friends, colleagues, and readers if it weren’t for Twitter. If it weren’t for Tweetie, which to me, was Twitter.
Mysterious Algorithm Was 4% of Trading Activity Last Week
Translation: the ultimate goal of many of these programs is to gum up the system so it slows down the quote feed to others and allows the computer traders (with their co-located servers at the exchanges) to gain a money-making arbitrage opportunity.
Quote Stuffing in Michael Kors Holdings ($KORS)
On February 14, 2012 at 10:48am, someone stuffed KORS with quotes from multiple exchanges at rates exceeding 18,000 quotes/sec. What is the purpose of blasting hundreds of thousands of quotes to millions of computers around the world in a single stock that had a few hundred trades at the time? Why is this tolerated?
To Regulate Rapid Traders, S.E.C. Turns to One of Them
With the Tradeworx program, the agency will gain access to every bid to buy stocks and every offer to sell shares on each of the nation’s 13 public exchanges. The system, akin to an X-ray machine for the stock market, could enable regulators to detect whether trading firms are overwhelming the market’s plumbing when they rapidly submit and cancel orders.
What if the Global Financial Crisis is Permanent
In a week where prominent fund manager Bill Gross likened America’s credit-based economic model to a crystal meth addiction (like any ‘hopium’ or narcotic, debt borrows the benefits of tomorrow for the enjoyment of today) and when central banks, from Australia to Russia, are joining peers in Europe, Britain, the US and Japan in pushing down rates or pump-priming markets with liquidity, one can see another of Mill’s classic warnings – the tyranny of the majority – coming true, with quick fixes and short-term solutions the order of the day.
