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I thought there was a consensus in this community on how the leading traders just squeeze money out of all other wannabe sharks. The skills I find most relevant

by bagosm 13y ago

I thought there was a consensus in this community on how the leading traders just squeeze money out of all other wannabe sharks. The skills I find most relevant are low ethics and networking (not the technological type of networking).

hatred 13y ago
^^ We guys can spit out a few lines of code here and there too in addition to the above mentioned hard to find traits by you ;)
CmonDev 13y ago
If you include ethics into your decisions then suddenly you are not able to work for a lot of companies. Google - severe tax evasion, Facebook - collecting your personal info for dodgy reasons etc.
- gaius 13y ago
  Not to mention the bubble-startup business model, raise a billion from VCs and blow it. That money belongs to pension funds, university endowments, charity trusts...
  - pron 13y ago
    It's not a zero-sum game like trading, though. You do try to benefit society and the economy, and even if you don't succeed, people make a living off that "blown" money.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      a) Trading isn't zero-sum. If you meant to say HFT, no, that isn't zero-sum either. b) Trying isn't enough. A billion blown is a billion blown, it doesn't matter what your intentions are - and if it does, I'm sure most HFT-traders are convinced that they are benefiting society and the economy. c) People are also making a living of off money spend in HFT-space, regardless of what their intentions are.
    - CmonDev 13y ago
      The only thing business with shareholders wants is maximizing the profits. Besides, how are you going to IPO your start-up without traders involved? Capitalism without trading sounds like communism without common property.
      - pron 13y ago
        A stock exchange doesn't need traders. We all buy and sell things all the time without the help of traders. Retailers and importers provide, in their domain, a much more valuable service than traders do in theirs. We don't even need traders for traditional risk-reducing options trading for farmers and manufacturers. > The only thing business with shareholders wants is maximizing the profits. In the US, generally yes. In other countries (like Germany), businesses have other goals, like providing sustenance to workers.
        CmonDev 13y ago
        "like providing sustenance to workers." when enforced by government that is, in some countries you don't even have to pay tax.
        pron 13y ago
        That government is elected by the people. It's not a foreign occupier. So I guess that the people of Germany have chosen to make businesses not just about maximizing profit.
    - gaius 13y ago
      It's not clear to me how society benefits from ever more intrusive ways to show people ads, and "people make a living" in that context is the same as Reagan's so-called "trickle down economics".
- pron 13y ago
  > If you include ethics into your decisions... By definition (almost), ethics is the systematic study of what one should or should not do. Are you suggesting ignoring the systematic study of what one should or should not do when one has to decide what one should or should not do? > then suddenly you are not able to work for a lot of companies... Well, every person has their own levels of comfort with various practices. Ethics doesn't give you clear-cut answers, it's just a way to think about decisions.
pron 13y ago
Let's put it this way: if the character of the people you work with matters to you, then HFT is not something you'd want to do.
- theorique 13y ago
  Sources? Are HF traders known to be objectively more “evil” people than others in the finance industry, or vicars of country churches, or social workers, or cabinet ministers? If so, I’d love to see the studies.
  - pron 13y ago
    I base this on the few people I know in this industry. Not scientific by any means. Now, people are hardly ever "evil", and they certainly never consider themselves evil. But even strangers would hardly call traders evil; they're just... how shall I put this... if you know some people working on (in?) Wall Street then you know the type. Of course, there are plenty of technical people working on the highly technical aspects of HFT with little regard to the domain itself, who don't fit the prototype; still, there are very few idealists in that industry.
    - javert 13y ago
      > they're just... how shall I put this... if you know some people working in Wall Street then you know the type. Well, I don't know anyone working on Wall Street and I don't know the "type." Can you give concrete examples or details to substantiate your claim and make it specific? What is it in particular that you object to about these people? No offense, but as a disclaimer, I don't want to come across as giving your claim too much credence. In the abstract, any form of trading is a life-supporting activity (someone is voluntarily choosing to trade with you to mutual benefit) and thus is noble, other factors being equal (e.g. you're not committing fraud, etc.).
      - pron 13y ago
        You're right. I'm sorry for taking the ad-hominem path. We should discuss the practice, not the practitioners (what is it that some Christians say? Love the sinner, hate the sin? ;)
davidw 13y ago
There are people here who work in that field, and they don't strike me as having 'low ethics', offhand. The consensus I'm more favorable to on HN is avoiding knee-jerk insults to people who you don't even know. I'm not wild about HFT myself, but these sorts of nasty comments are something I would prefer not to see in this community.
- pron 13y ago
  > but these sorts of nasty comments are something I would prefer not to see in this community. Because I've made comments in the same vein, I had given some thought to the matter before posting them. You are, of course, right. These are gross generalizations, and I think most readers here would recognize them as such. However, I think that another principle trumps here, and that is setting a sort of "baseline" ethics. The HN community is composed mostly of engineers, who for centuries have had the tendency to concentrate on the technical challenge at hand rather than the social and moral ramifications of their products. By establishing a certain crude (I admit) sentiment that HFT is "wrong unless proven otherwise", or, at the very least, that it demands some serious thought before engaging in, we draw a blurry, faint red line that we, as engineers, should pay attention to. Naturally, this applies to all undertakings, but in our community, HFT serves as a suitable exemplar. I think.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Do you see any difference between saying "HFT is scummy" and "the people doing HFT are scummy"?
    - pron 13y ago
      Of course! People don't generally set out to do wrong. Most "industrial grade" wrongs are done by people with good, or neutral intentions.
tptacek 13y ago
Interesting. I thought the consensus on HN was, we should form unshakeable opinions about entire industries based on Matt Taibbi articles in Rolling Stone, or, better, based on comment-driven games of telephone starting from the most colorful sentences in Taibbi articles, and then that we should wield those opinions to cast aspersions on strangers on HN to make us feel better about ourselves. Oh, wait. Did I just say the same thing you did? I'm sorry. Carry on.

by bagosm 13y ago

hatred 13y ago

^^ We guys can spit out a few lines of code here and there too in addition to the above mentioned hard to find traits by you ;)

CmonDev 13y ago

If you include ethics into your decisions then suddenly you are not able to work for a lot of companies. Google - severe tax evasion, Facebook - collecting your personal info for dodgy reasons etc.

gaius 13y ago
Not to mention the bubble-startup business model, raise a billion from VCs and blow it. That money belongs to pension funds, university endowments, charity trusts...
- pron 13y ago
  It's not a zero-sum game like trading, though. You do try to benefit society and the economy, and even if you don't succeed, people make a living off that "blown" money.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    a) Trading isn't zero-sum. If you meant to say HFT, no, that isn't zero-sum either. b) Trying isn't enough. A billion blown is a billion blown, it doesn't matter what your intentions are - and if it does, I'm sure most HFT-traders are convinced that they are benefiting society and the economy. c) People are also making a living of off money spend in HFT-space, regardless of what their intentions are.
  - CmonDev 13y ago
    The only thing business with shareholders wants is maximizing the profits. Besides, how are you going to IPO your start-up without traders involved? Capitalism without trading sounds like communism without common property.
    - pron 13y ago
      A stock exchange doesn't need traders. We all buy and sell things all the time without the help of traders. Retailers and importers provide, in their domain, a much more valuable service than traders do in theirs. We don't even need traders for traditional risk-reducing options trading for farmers and manufacturers. > The only thing business with shareholders wants is maximizing the profits. In the US, generally yes. In other countries (like Germany), businesses have other goals, like providing sustenance to workers.
      - CmonDev 13y ago
        "like providing sustenance to workers." when enforced by government that is, in some countries you don't even have to pay tax.
        pron 13y ago
        That government is elected by the people. It's not a foreign occupier. So I guess that the people of Germany have chosen to make businesses not just about maximizing profit.
  - gaius 13y ago
    It's not clear to me how society benefits from ever more intrusive ways to show people ads, and "people make a living" in that context is the same as Reagan's so-called "trickle down economics".
pron 13y ago
> If you include ethics into your decisions... By definition (almost), ethics is the systematic study of what one should or should not do. Are you suggesting ignoring the systematic study of what one should or should not do when one has to decide what one should or should not do? > then suddenly you are not able to work for a lot of companies... Well, every person has their own levels of comfort with various practices. Ethics doesn't give you clear-cut answers, it's just a way to think about decisions.

pron 13y ago

Let's put it this way: if the character of the people you work with matters to you, then HFT is not something you'd want to do.

theorique 13y ago
Sources? Are HF traders known to be objectively more “evil” people than others in the finance industry, or vicars of country churches, or social workers, or cabinet ministers? If so, I’d love to see the studies.
- pron 13y ago
  I base this on the few people I know in this industry. Not scientific by any means. Now, people are hardly ever "evil", and they certainly never consider themselves evil. But even strangers would hardly call traders evil; they're just... how shall I put this... if you know some people working on (in?) Wall Street then you know the type. Of course, there are plenty of technical people working on the highly technical aspects of HFT with little regard to the domain itself, who don't fit the prototype; still, there are very few idealists in that industry.
  - javert 13y ago
    > they're just... how shall I put this... if you know some people working in Wall Street then you know the type. Well, I don't know anyone working on Wall Street and I don't know the "type." Can you give concrete examples or details to substantiate your claim and make it specific? What is it in particular that you object to about these people? No offense, but as a disclaimer, I don't want to come across as giving your claim too much credence. In the abstract, any form of trading is a life-supporting activity (someone is voluntarily choosing to trade with you to mutual benefit) and thus is noble, other factors being equal (e.g. you're not committing fraud, etc.).
    - pron 13y ago
      You're right. I'm sorry for taking the ad-hominem path. We should discuss the practice, not the practitioners (what is it that some Christians say? Love the sinner, hate the sin? ;)

davidw 13y ago

There are people here who work in that field, and they don't strike me as having 'low ethics', offhand. The consensus I'm more favorable to on HN is avoiding knee-jerk insults to people who you don't even know. I'm not wild about HFT myself, but these sorts of nasty comments are something I would prefer not to see in this community.

pron 13y ago
> but these sorts of nasty comments are something I would prefer not to see in this community. Because I've made comments in the same vein, I had given some thought to the matter before posting them. You are, of course, right. These are gross generalizations, and I think most readers here would recognize them as such. However, I think that another principle trumps here, and that is setting a sort of "baseline" ethics. The HN community is composed mostly of engineers, who for centuries have had the tendency to concentrate on the technical challenge at hand rather than the social and moral ramifications of their products. By establishing a certain crude (I admit) sentiment that HFT is "wrong unless proven otherwise", or, at the very least, that it demands some serious thought before engaging in, we draw a blurry, faint red line that we, as engineers, should pay attention to. Naturally, this applies to all undertakings, but in our community, HFT serves as a suitable exemplar. I think.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Do you see any difference between saying "HFT is scummy" and "the people doing HFT are scummy"?
  - pron 13y ago
    Of course! People don't generally set out to do wrong. Most "industrial grade" wrongs are done by people with good, or neutral intentions.

tptacek 13y ago

Interesting. I thought the consensus on HN was, we should form unshakeable opinions about entire industries based on Matt Taibbi articles in Rolling Stone, or, better, based on comment-driven games of telephone starting from the most colorful sentences in Taibbi articles, and then that we should wield those opinions to cast aspersions on strangers on HN to make us feel better about ourselves. Oh, wait. Did I just say the same thing you did? I'm sorry. Carry on.