
An Adaptation From ‘Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt,’ by Michael Lewis - dcaisen
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/magazine/flash-boys-michael-lewis.html
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davi
Fascinating idea: insane society-scale bureaucracies make puzzle solvers out
of everyone.

 _Sokoloff was Russian, born and raised in a city on the Volga River. He had
an explanation for why so many of his countrymen wound up in high-frequency
trading. The old Soviet educational system channeled people into math and
science. And the Soviet-controlled economy was horrible and complicated but
riddled with loopholes, an environment that left those who mastered it well
prepared for Wall Street in the early 21st century._

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mangeletti
I swear to god, I witness this every day while trying to trade oil futures. I
watch institutional orders for as many as 200 contracts (almost $1,000,000
worth of margin) appear just below support or just above resistance, and as
soon as a large market order goes through that will push through that order,
the order is instantly retracted, faster than my trading platform can even
perceive. These orders exist for less than 1-3 seconds, typically, and they
make me so angry. These people aren't happy robbing new investors by using
investor wisdom (perfectly legit). They have to do it in a snaky way like
this. It makes day trading (which is a perfectly valid thing to do - it
provides liquidity to markets, and offloads near-term risk to those willing to
take it for a small profit) impossible for anyone with less than millions of
dollars and close-to-market connectivity (e.g., large cables leading to a
server room next door to CME or NYSE or NASDAQ, etc.) to have a chance at
surviving.

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Idocrase
I don't see how disappearing quotes affect you when you "add liquidity".

