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"Shook to its core" is more than a bit overstated.

quanticle 12y ago
Agreed. We have seen zero regulatory or legislative proposals to limit high frequency trading. Flash Boys didn't shake Wall Street to its core. It didn't even register as a tremor. Arguably (like Michael Lewis' other book, Liar's Poker) it made high frequency trading look sexy, and therefore more attractive.
Hansi 12y ago
Haha yes, most people know that Lewis is full of hyperbole and took it as that. It was pub chatting subject in finance for a week or two and then faded away
Lazare 12y ago
I was going to say the same thing. My feeling is that "Wall Street" mostly ignored the book, which they expected to have no lasting impact. And even that turned out to be an overestimate. Not only has it had no lasting impact, I wouldn't say it had a fleeting impact either. In fact, I can't think of a single measurable impact the book has had on Wall Street. At most it gave people who already distrusted the financial industry a few more reasons to do it, but it led to no new laws, no new regulations, no prosecutions, no anything really. And if you ignore the headline and look at the article, Lewis's main argument seems to be that he made some very rich people "angry". Which is 1) a far cry from "shaking wall street to its core" 2) something he offers zero evidence—even anecdotally—to support and 3) also not true, as far as I'm aware. Don't get me wrong; I've read several of Lewis's books, I like his writing, and I'm sure he's a great guy. But I kind of doubt even Lewis believes this spin; it's just marketing. Edit: It's also worth remembering that the losers in the rise of HFT are overwhelming the big institutional players in the market. People have this weird idea that HFT is all about big banks victimizing small investors, but in reality the big banks are the losers, and the small investors are the winners. (Yes, really.) Which makes Lewis's claim that he was making the richest people in Wall Street angry so ironic. They were already angry at HFT, and they tried to use Lewis as ammunition in their ongoing fight against HFT. It's a bit like making a movie about how fracking is terrible, then priding yourself about how you must have made the big oil majors very bad...not even realising that they were the ones funding you all along, because fracking is a threat to them, not an opportunity. (And yes, that happened. Matt Damon's film Promised Land turned out to be heavily funded by the UAE, who has a vested interested in discouraging domestic fossil fuel production in the US. I'm sure Damon thought he was standing up to Big Oil, but reality is more complex.)

Agreed. We have seen zero regulatory or legislative proposals to limit high frequency trading. Flash Boys didn't shake Wall Street to its core. It didn't even register as a tremor. Arguably (like Michael Lewis' other book, Liar's Poker) it made high frequency trading look sexy, and therefore more attractive.

Hansi 12y ago

Haha yes, most people know that Lewis is full of hyperbole and took it as that. It was pub chatting subject in finance for a week or two and then faded away

Lazare 12y ago

I was going to say the same thing. My feeling is that "Wall Street" mostly ignored the book, which they expected to have no lasting impact. And even that turned out to be an overestimate. Not only has it had no lasting impact, I wouldn't say it had a fleeting impact either. In fact, I can't think of a single measurable impact the book has had on Wall Street. At most it gave people who already distrusted the financial industry a few more reasons to do it, but it led to no new laws, no new regulations, no prosecutions, no anything really. And if you ignore the headline and look at the article, Lewis's main argument seems to be that he made some very rich people "angry". Which is 1) a far cry from "shaking wall street to its core" 2) something he offers zero evidence—even anecdotally—to support and 3) also not true, as far as I'm aware. Don't get me wrong; I've read several of Lewis's books, I like his writing, and I'm sure he's a great guy. But I kind of doubt even Lewis believes this spin; it's just marketing. Edit: It's also worth remembering that the losers in the rise of HFT are overwhelming the big institutional players in the market. People have this weird idea that HFT is all about big banks victimizing small investors, but in reality the big banks are the losers, and the small investors are the winners. (Yes, really.) Which makes Lewis's claim that he was making the richest people in Wall Street angry so ironic. They were already angry at HFT, and they tried to use Lewis as ammunition in their ongoing fight against HFT. It's a bit like making a movie about how fracking is terrible, then priding yourself about how you must have made the big oil majors very bad...not even realising that they were the ones funding you all along, because fracking is a threat to them, not an opportunity. (And yes, that happened. Matt Damon's film Promised Land turned out to be heavily funded by the UAE, who has a vested interested in discouraging domestic fossil fuel production in the US. I'm sure Damon thought he was standing up to Big Oil, but reality is more complex.)