This Video Of One Half-Second Of High Frequency Trading Is Insane, Terrifying

Originally posted by RedDragon

Originally posted by LittleBlackEagle

Originally posted by RedDragon
Is it scary because you don't understand it?

HFT lowers volatility, increases liquidity, and massively decreases transaction costs. They're modern day market-makers. They've replaced market makers similar to how cars replaced horse and buggies.

if HFT runs too fast to regulate, then people are stealing with it, human nature 101, then it should not be used.
what happens when the "too big to fail" banks use the "too fast to regulate HFT" what do you have left? good luck with selling me the sermon on that one, thanks but no thanks.

Since intelligence = rate of thought * efficiency of thought, should it be illegal to be intelligent? Are intelligent people doing something automatically ignoring property rights?

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

i have no idea what direction you're going, but intelligence and theft are mutually exclusive, you know. lol

Originally posted by totallackey
A vast majority of our current economic malaise is the simple existence of daytraders and instant online trading...markets can be driven at the whim of a simple tweet...tweet the President has been rushed to the hospital and the market will fall 150 points, until the truth gets out...why?

DAYTRADERS...AKA people out for kicks...

retail daytraders are so inconsequential to the overall market, I was one, got out, why?....there are levels of information provided....the wealthier you are, the more information you can access...also, daytraders rely on trading platforms that they have to trust are fair for everyone. without going into libelous detail, my own personal research indicated that I was at a severe disadvantage. lessons learned?
1. always look to sectors that ARE NOT being publicly talked about, once the information is public, you are already at a disadvantage
2. brokers and dealers make money on bad trades and good trades,
3. the wealthy trade in "afterhours"...when you "see" a stock went up a dollar that day, 80 cents of that rise most likely occurred before the 9:30 EST opening bell, (the start time you are allowed to trade)
4. read about the collapse of Bear & Stearns, and Lehman brothers, to see how insignificant you really are
5. only trust actions taken, never words spoken
6. look for long term, steady, dividend paying stocks for best results, i.e. (energy provider companies, etc.)
there is a lot more I could say, but i'll leave it at that.

Just a 0.1% tax on all international trades with 0.05% going to each government would be enough to stop this madness.

Maybe investors would think twice instead of speculating constantly.

reply to post by totallackey


Actually they use crawlers and algorithms to comb twitter, facebook, etc. Some are day traders, but the rest is still the digital traders.

Originally posted by theMediator
Just a 0.1% tax on all international trades with 0.05% going to each government would be enough to stop this madness.

If you desire a transaction tax, why are you taxing the notional value of the transaction instead of just taxing per transaction?

Taxing the notional value of transactions is very destructive and will cause virtually all financial transactions to move overseas, overnight.

Maybe investors would think twice instead of speculating constantly.

Why is speculation undesirable?

With no speculators, there's no one to assume the other side's risk against farmers, airlines, etc. hedging. With no speculators, there's no one for you to buy stock from or sell stock to unless you want to wait a year for the other buy+hold guy to buy/ sell with you (no liquidity). With no speculators, there's no way for price to continuously adjusted on supply/ demand, thus increasing volatility. With no speculators, there's no way for an action today to adjust price based on the risk it presents in tomorrow, thus causing mispricings across moments of time leading to shortages and excesses..

Get rid of speculators and you do harm, not good.

Originally posted by LittleBlackEagle

Originally posted by RedDragon

Originally posted by LittleBlackEagle

Originally posted by RedDragon
Is it scary because you don't understand it?

HFT lowers volatility, increases liquidity, and massively decreases transaction costs. They're modern day market-makers. They've replaced market makers similar to how cars replaced horse and buggies.

if HFT runs too fast to regulate, then people are stealing with it, human nature 101, then it should not be used.
what happens when the "too big to fail" banks use the "too fast to regulate HFT" what do you have left? good luck with selling me the sermon on that one, thanks but no thanks.

Since intelligence = rate of thought * efficiency of thought, should it be illegal to be intelligent? Are intelligent people doing something automatically ignoring property rights?

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

i have no idea what direction you're going, but intelligence and theft are mutually exclusive, you know. lol

And since speed of thought (speed of trading) is a major input to intelligence (trading effectiveness), HFT are not automatically stealing due to trading faster than you can.

This is how the big boys play .They can trade the same stock 1000 times in the time it takes for you to buy or sell that stock once.

High-frequency trading (HFT) is the use of sophisticated technological tools and computer algorithms to trade securities on a rapid basis.[1][2][3] HFT usually uses proprietary trading strategies that are carried out by computers. Unlike regular investing, an investment position in HFT may be held for only seconds, or fractions of a second (though sometimes it may extend to longer), with the computer trading in and out of positions thousands or tens of thousands of times a day.[4] At the end of a day of HFT, there is no open position in the market. Firms engaged in HFT rely heavily on the processing speed of their trades, and on their access to the market. Many high-frequency traders provide liquidity and price discovery to the markets through market-making and arbitrage trading; and high-frequency traders also take liquidity to manage risk or lock in profits.[5]

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


scalpers

lets set up our own exchange and trade (buy/sell) shares of planets in our solar system?

Its fascinating to see visualizations of things we generally don't think of in a visual manner, most people when they think of trading think of yelling people on the NYSE floor. Another interesting thing that is kind of off topic but some of you might enjoy is a visualization of a DDOS as it happen www.youtube.com...

The world is lost when those cronies use that technology every millisecond.

Artificial intelligence: already shaping up to fulfilling Hollywood's worst nightmares.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Interesting video, it would be nice if the stock market was re-modeled to offer more transparency and fairness.

It's amazing how such simple market principles can be overcomplicated to such magnitude all in the name of profiteering.

Originally posted by RedDragon
Why is speculation undesirable?

Gee, perhaps the gas price explosion that went down right during the housing collapse? That was some timing.

Sure the idea of 'speculation' about what something might be worth isn't inherently bad, but whent theres a literal system of GAMBLING built in, not based on buying stocks but insteac actually BETTING on what they might do... when that system helped bring this nation to its knees in 2008, please tell me the system as it is should remain intact.

reply to post by EarthCitizen07


Look, its like this: positions of power are really only sought out by certain personality types. It just so happens that those personality types typically tend to be of the kind of sociopathic mentality that does the things you describe. The kind of folks who view humans as "capital", and don't mind expending some of that capital from time to time.

Your belief that the majority of humanity isn't sociopathic or psychopathic likely is not true (although it would be a good topic of debate among well learned individuals). However, even if it is, the lure of power is likely to cause more of those who are of that nature to gravitate towards positions of power.

Originally posted by RedDragon

Originally posted by LittleBlackEagle

Originally posted by RedDragon
Is it scary because you don't understand it?

HFT lowers volatility, increases liquidity, and massively decreases transaction costs. They're modern day market-makers. They've replaced market makers similar to how cars replaced horse and buggies.

if HFT runs too fast to regulate, then people are stealing with it, human nature 101, then it should not be used.
what happens when the "too big to fail" banks use the "too fast to regulate HFT" what do you have left? good luck with selling me the sermon on that one, thanks but no thanks.

Since intelligence = rate of thought * efficiency of thought, should it be illegal to be intelligent? Are intelligent people doing something automatically ignoring property rights?

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

edit on 5/10/13 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

Lol dude you're funny. I love how you try and make it seem like such a matter of fact thing," Since intelligence=....."

How about QUALITY of the thoughts?

Plus wouldn't your efficiency of thinking directly affect the rate....

It sounded good man.. It really did hahaha

Op, thanks for giving me a visualization to link with HFT now!!

It looks nuts, but a lot of that is people like me saying "sell your position if the commodity/stock rises to x or falls to y".

The trick is to spot where the other algorithms and people are aggregating their stops.

Here is a curious article on the BBC concerning the use of LAZOR technology in the city of London to increase the speed and frequency of transactions as apparently a millisecond is quite a long time, too long infact lol.

Financial traders turn to lasers for faster deals

Only natural thing to do now though, I guess people are just kinda efficient that way.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by EarthCitizen07

 

Look, its like this: positions of power are really only sought out by certain personality types. It just so happens that those personality types typically tend to be of the kind of sociopathic mentality that does the things you describe. The kind of folks who view humans as "capital", and don't mind expending some of that capital from time to time.

Your belief that the majority of humanity isn't sociopathic or psychopathic likely is not true (although it would be a good topic of debate among well learned individuals). However, even if it is, the lure of power is likely to cause more of those who are of that nature to gravitate towards positions of power.

The people who run everything are satanists with trillions of dollars to spare, to use that money to buy government favors regardless which party wins the election. The elections are pretty fake, but not entirely.

I disagree with your analysis that everyone is a sociopath or pyschopath because the degree of evil between what I try to describe and what you try to describe is night and day difference. Its apples and oranges on the scale of relativity.

Originally posted by RedDragon

Originally posted by theMediator
Just a 0.1% tax on all international trades with 0.05% going to each government would be enough to stop this madness.

If you desire a transaction tax, why are you taxing the notional value of the transaction instead of just taxing per transaction?

Taxing the notional value of transactions is very destructive and will cause virtually all financial transactions to move overseas, overnight.

Maybe investors would think twice instead of speculating constantly.

Why is speculation undesirable?

With no speculators, there's no one to assume the other side's risk against farmers, airlines, etc. hedging. With no speculators, there's no one for you to buy stock from or sell stock to unless you want to wait a year for the other buy+hold guy to buy/ sell with you (no liquidity). With no speculators, there's no way for price to continuously adjusted on supply/ demand, thus increasing volatility. With no speculators, there's no way for an action today to adjust price based on the risk it presents in tomorrow, thus causing mispricings across moments of time leading to shortages and excesses..

Get rid of speculators and you do harm, not good.

People don't have to be masters in finance to know there is something seriously wrong with wall street and the political system. Instead of discussing what is wrong with the system you attempt to generalise stuff and make excuses for a sick status quo.

I have seen posters in the past explain the corruption in detail and they are mocked or ignored.

nope, it's not like that at all.......the spikes are market operators jockying for position....and I clobber them everyday.....

they will give a reason for the spike.....but it's contrived....I trade by my wristwatch!....did 77% on thursday.
JPY/xxx pairs