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Well researched findings there. Imagine a world, where the same logs would be public of what and by whom happens on the stock exchanges where all the high frequ

Well researched findings there. Imagine a world, where the same logs would be public of what and by whom happens on the stock exchanges where all the high frequency trading is happening these days...

grkvlt 12y ago
So, the world we live in right now then? All trade data, even HFT sourced, is available from exchanges. The only possible exception is dark pools or other crossing networks, but in general it is quite possible to know who bought what from whom, when and for how much.
- shutupalready 12y ago
  > All trade data, even HFT sourced, is available from exchanges. You mean it's available to government regulators, but not to the general public, correct? If stock and option trades are part of the public record, there are lots of questions I'd like to answer for myself. Otherwise, we're just taking the word of other people (the regulators). Here's one question: I'd like to know who specifically was behind the huge volume in put options on United and American Airlines stock immediately before the 9/11 attack. Someone was essentially shorting those two airlines, and only those two. (For example, Bloomberg data showed that on 6 September 2001, the Thursday before the attack, the put-option volume in UAL stock was nearly 100 times higher than normal: 2,000 options versus 27 on the previous day.) The 9/11 Commission report concluded that, "A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy", but they refused to identify who it was. Everything is not so transparent unless there's some public repository for all this information that I'm not aware of.
  - fabulist 12y ago
    This is chilling. What are the odds that this wasn't "insider trading" with the attackers?
    - mikeyouse 12y ago
      > What are the odds that this wasn't "insider trading" with the attackers? Extremely high. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    I'm sure it was an innocent oversight for you to leave off the remainder of the 9/11 commission's quote; """ A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades. The SEC and FBI, aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments. """
- spacefight 12y ago
  Yes, that world, of course :) The trade data is available to market information companies, other trading partners and of course the regulators, but is the subscriber data too? E.g. who gave the order to the trading partner? Oh and yes, it's not really public...

Well researched findings there. Imagine a world, where the same logs would be public of what and by whom happens on the stock exchanges where all the high frequency trading is happening these days...

grkvlt 12y ago

So, the world we live in right now then? All trade data, even HFT sourced, is available from exchanges. The only possible exception is dark pools or other crossing networks, but in general it is quite possible to know who bought what from whom, when and for how much.

shutupalready 12y ago
> All trade data, even HFT sourced, is available from exchanges. You mean it's available to government regulators, but not to the general public, correct? If stock and option trades are part of the public record, there are lots of questions I'd like to answer for myself. Otherwise, we're just taking the word of other people (the regulators). Here's one question: I'd like to know who specifically was behind the huge volume in put options on United and American Airlines stock immediately before the 9/11 attack. Someone was essentially shorting those two airlines, and only those two. (For example, Bloomberg data showed that on 6 September 2001, the Thursday before the attack, the put-option volume in UAL stock was nearly 100 times higher than normal: 2,000 options versus 27 on the previous day.) The 9/11 Commission report concluded that, "A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy", but they refused to identify who it was. Everything is not so transparent unless there's some public repository for all this information that I'm not aware of.
- fabulist 12y ago
  This is chilling. What are the odds that this wasn't "insider trading" with the attackers?
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    > What are the odds that this wasn't "insider trading" with the attackers? Extremely high. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  I'm sure it was an innocent oversight for you to leave off the remainder of the 9/11 commission's quote; """ A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades. The SEC and FBI, aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments. """
spacefight 12y ago
Yes, that world, of course :) The trade data is available to market information companies, other trading partners and of course the regulators, but is the subscriber data too? E.g. who gave the order to the trading partner? Oh and yes, it's not really public...