"Des waerelds doen en doolen, is maar een mallemoolen,"

"Des waerelds doen en doolen, is maar een mallemoolen," engraving from Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid, 1720.

"The actions and designs of the world go round as if in a mill." South Sea bubble financial crisis.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

The complexity of stock markets

The Nasdaq has been hacked. First the flash crash and now this: 
Hackers have repeatedly penetrated the computer network of the company that runs the Nasdaq Stock Market during the past year, and federal investigators are trying to identify the perpetrators and their purpose, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tyler Durden takes a retrospective look at its recent development and conclude that this stock market is nothing but a "daylight fraud":
The one exchange to first legalize frontrunning aka Flash Trading, to actively promote churning via HFT erection-inducing liquidity rebates in stocks and options, to create novel and ingenious ways to skirt Rule 611, and, most recently, to overtake the NYSE as host for greatest number of fraudulent Chinese reverse-mergers, the Nasdaq has never kept a secret that it cares far more about its clients than the investing public.
This shows just how critical and complex financial markets have become. They are viewed by officials as part of the basic infrastructure, like power companies or air-traffic-control operations. On the other hand, the SEC does not have the budget to regulate it like it should be (which does not excuse its staff downloading midget-porn). And wait, if stock markets like the Nasdaq are of strategic importance,  then the debate about how to regulate it should be viewed in this light as well. It boils down to how to manage complex financial system - algo trades and HFT are under scrutiny - so that investors and the public do not begin to think financial systems are big ponzi schemes.



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