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Since we're close to the topic, let's take a moment to all remember that Flash Boys is a crappy book that gets a lot of stuff really really wrong. Read the reb

by harryh 8y ago

Since we're close to the topic, let's take a moment to all remember that Flash Boys is a crappy book that gets a lot of stuff really really wrong. Read the rebuttal! https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-Frequency-ebook/dp/B00P0QI2M2 https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-...

Hasz 8y ago
Dark Pools is an excellent alternative, on a slightly different topic, although similar material is covered.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Strongly recommend Dark Pools for people interested in this topic from just a sort of history-of-technology perspective; it also covers a much longer span of history. Dark Pools also takes kind of a gimlet eye to algorithmic trading, in case anyone thinks the recommendation is because the author thinks the opposite thing to Lewis.
SEJeff 8y ago
Additionally, I can personally vouch for Peter Kovac, the author of the rebuttal to Flash Boys: https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-Frequency-ebook/dp/B00P0QI2M2 https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-... I can vouch for Peter because I worked with him for close to 5 years at Madison Tyler Trading / EWT, LLC (which later merged with Virtu Financial). He’s a very talented technologist who build the real-time clearing and risk system along with an encyclopedic memory of financial regulations and nuance. He always stuck out to me as an “honest to a fault” kind of guy, and that is one of the reasons we got on so well, as I was never much for nuance.
kristianp 8y ago
Michael Lewis is a former trader himself. I find it hard to believe he could get things that wrong.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Not really the same kind of trader, was he? Wasn't Lewis a bond salesman?
- docker_up 8y ago
  He wasn't a trader. He was in investment banking, which is not the same thing. If anything he was more into sales and not trading.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Lewis was a coffee getter at Sollys by all accounts that ain't his. Good writer though. As long as you remember it's fiction.
- wglb 8y ago
  Bond salesman.
- SEJeff 8y ago
  Wasn't Lewis more of a pit bond trader? When I read Flash Boys, I read it with the understanding it was kind of like reading a book from a Horse Drawn Carriage salesmen after Henry Ford released the Model T. He has a bone to pick, and his bias oozes into every word of the book. Are some of his problems with electronic trading valid? Absolutely! Is he horribly biased and lets that show in his writing to make a more "shocking" story? Absolutely! There used to be a finite number of spots in the trading pits. If you didn't get into the pit, you couldn't be in on the trading and potentially millions that were made. Now the trading went from the speed of human communication to the speed of electrons moving over fiber optics. However, instead of a limited spot on the floor, literally anyone can buy space in exchange co-located datacenters. You and I could chip in and buy some servers to put in the Weehawken, NJ datacenter used for NYSE and it would be affordable. Electronic trading brought a lot of changes, some good, and some bad, but it is arguably more "fair" now than it has been for a very long time.

by harryh 8y ago

Hasz 8y ago

Dark Pools is an excellent alternative, on a slightly different topic, although similar material is covered.

tptacek 8y ago
Strongly recommend Dark Pools for people interested in this topic from just a sort of history-of-technology perspective; it also covers a much longer span of history. Dark Pools also takes kind of a gimlet eye to algorithmic trading, in case anyone thinks the recommendation is because the author thinks the opposite thing to Lewis.

SEJeff 8y ago

Additionally, I can personally vouch for Peter Kovac, the author of the rebuttal to Flash Boys: https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-Frequency-ebook/dp/B00P0QI2M2 https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-... I can vouch for Peter because I worked with him for close to 5 years at Madison Tyler Trading / EWT, LLC (which later merged with Virtu Financial). He’s a very talented technologist who build the real-time clearing and risk system along with an encyclopedic memory of financial regulations and nuance. He always stuck out to me as an “honest to a fault” kind of guy, and that is one of the reasons we got on so well, as I was never much for nuance.

kristianp 8y ago

Michael Lewis is a former trader himself. I find it hard to believe he could get things that wrong.

tptacek 8y ago
Not really the same kind of trader, was he? Wasn't Lewis a bond salesman?
docker_up 8y ago
He wasn't a trader. He was in investment banking, which is not the same thing. If anything he was more into sales and not trading.
scottlocklin 8y ago
Lewis was a coffee getter at Sollys by all accounts that ain't his. Good writer though. As long as you remember it's fiction.
wglb 8y ago
Bond salesman.
SEJeff 8y ago
Wasn't Lewis more of a pit bond trader? When I read Flash Boys, I read it with the understanding it was kind of like reading a book from a Horse Drawn Carriage salesmen after Henry Ford released the Model T. He has a bone to pick, and his bias oozes into every word of the book. Are some of his problems with electronic trading valid? Absolutely! Is he horribly biased and lets that show in his writing to make a more "shocking" story? Absolutely! There used to be a finite number of spots in the trading pits. If you didn't get into the pit, you couldn't be in on the trading and potentially millions that were made. Now the trading went from the speed of human communication to the speed of electrons moving over fiber optics. However, instead of a limited spot on the floor, literally anyone can buy space in exchange co-located datacenters. You and I could chip in and buy some servers to put in the Weehawken, NJ datacenter used for NYSE and it would be affordable. Electronic trading brought a lot of changes, some good, and some bad, but it is arguably more "fair" now than it has been for a very long time.