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What exactly did you find hyperbolic and ignorant about the article? Agreed, the article was pushing an agenda of IEX, but to a casual reader this stance seems

by sireat 13y ago

What exactly did you find hyperbolic and ignorant about the article? Agreed, the article was pushing an agenda of IEX, but to a casual reader this stance seems aligned to the needs of regular traders big and small alike as opposed to those seeking to exploit the system no offense meant. The built in 320ms latency of IEX in particular seems reasonable. Does the world really need nanosecond order execution times which give those with the closest boxes an ability to front-run?

kasey_junk 13y ago
The article was an advertisement for IEX and I'm very disappointed that Michael Lewis is shilling for them. That said, the hyperbole and ignorance I was worried about had to do with the standard response in the HN forums to any article touching on HFT. This community has a severe bias against HFT and are for the most part completely ignorant about how markets work (or how they used to work). This is very frustrating and often makes me angry. Instead of having that response I was hoping to eliminate some of the ignorance with my responses.
- bkmartin 13y ago
  So, even though the article was an advertisement for IEX, you still didn't answer the question of whether they really are offering a great service to level the playing field. You just answered with more hyperbole.
  - kasey_junk 13y ago
    I have never used their service or even traded equities as an HFT, so I won't comment on their specific implementation/value add. That said, A) I reject the entire premise that the current markets are tilted against large institutional investors. or B) that a large purchase order from such an investor shouldn't move the market price. Large block transactions move the markets not because of nefarious poorly understood bogey man algorithms, but because of basic market forces. This has been the case long before HFT came on the seen. That an execution trader at a major financial institution getting paid a million dollars of client fee money didn't know this is pretty appalling. I will say I think their marketing is brilliant. Most other dark pools get painted with the same murky brush as HFT. That a dark pool backed by billionaire investors and Goldman Sachs can position themselves as defenders of the little guy is really impressive. Their long fiber cable gimic is also really nice showmanship.

by sireat 13y ago

kasey_junk 13y ago

The article was an advertisement for IEX and I'm very disappointed that Michael Lewis is shilling for them. That said, the hyperbole and ignorance I was worried about had to do with the standard response in the HN forums to any article touching on HFT. This community has a severe bias against HFT and are for the most part completely ignorant about how markets work (or how they used to work). This is very frustrating and often makes me angry. Instead of having that response I was hoping to eliminate some of the ignorance with my responses.

bkmartin 13y ago
So, even though the article was an advertisement for IEX, you still didn't answer the question of whether they really are offering a great service to level the playing field. You just answered with more hyperbole.
- kasey_junk 13y ago
  I have never used their service or even traded equities as an HFT, so I won't comment on their specific implementation/value add. That said, A) I reject the entire premise that the current markets are tilted against large institutional investors. or B) that a large purchase order from such an investor shouldn't move the market price. Large block transactions move the markets not because of nefarious poorly understood bogey man algorithms, but because of basic market forces. This has been the case long before HFT came on the seen. That an execution trader at a major financial institution getting paid a million dollars of client fee money didn't know this is pretty appalling. I will say I think their marketing is brilliant. Most other dark pools get painted with the same murky brush as HFT. That a dark pool backed by billionaire investors and Goldman Sachs can position themselves as defenders of the little guy is really impressive. Their long fiber cable gimic is also really nice showmanship.