rkbabang

Of course slowing down orders so they hit all exchanges at the same time works. Why would you think that represents a flaw in the system? Previously, the broker was doing the following steps: #1 - clearly indicate to players on the NYSE a strong interest in purchasing stock (through activity on another exchange), #2 - deliver an order for stock to the NYSE. Naturally, it turned out better for RBC to do #2 before #1. That's the sign of a healthy interaction across exchanges. Of course I'd like to be able to buy an unlimited number of shares and not have my previous, visible activity factor into the market price. Buffet and other big stock buyers would like this even more! (Is it "front running" to buy WFC on the basis I suspect Buffet will likely buy some in the future - or perhaps has an order in transit right now?) You don't have a right to this, however. You now have no right to suspect? You have no right to attempt to figure out the intentions of others? This is going beyond ridiculous.

The latter.

But what is the problem that is being solved? If there really is front running or some crime being committed I agree with you, but if it is just an arms race to have the fastest equipment, shortest fiber (closest real estate), and best algorithms, then what exactly is the problem? The threshold for taking action against someone who is making money shouldn't be "does it add value?", but "does it cause harm?" and "who is the victim?". The answer to both those questions is "no" and "no one". "Does it add value?" Maybe. Maybe not. Who really cares? What is the reason this bothers people so much? Re-read Harrison Bergeron at my link above, this whole thread reads like that story to me.

No. You don't solve anything. It's like saying Formula 1 would be fair if everybody starts 10 minutes later. You ignore inter-exchange arbitrage, hardware speed, software efficiency and important information from other sources (Reuters news, SEC-filings, currency feeds, interest rate decisions, etc.). Also you ignore my previous point: an exchange like NYSE already has equal-length cables for colocated servers. The playing field is completely level as long as you have the capital to compete. Maybe everyone everywhere in the world should be required to use the same computer and the same software and some bureaucrat can be tasked with deciding when everyone can upgrade, but upgrading can only be done when everyone on Earth can afford to. #progress!

To make things even more fair when you want to invest in stocks, you should place your trade and a random number generator determines which stock you get. It is no more fair that some people should profit from using public information more intelligently than others when determining which stocks to buy than it is that some people are able to evaluate information and execute trades more quickly than others. Some people have some weird expectation that life should be fair and everyone equal. This is the result of that type of thinking: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

I don't doubt that. I didn't want to say that HFT is "evil". What bothers me is not computerized trading or having faster access to new information, what bothers me is that the very fact that I am placing an order (or rather a larger institutional investor) is the "news" that some of these HF traders can trade on even before I get my order filled. But do these HF traders have access to anything that you couldn't have access to as well if you were to make the same investment they have in equipment and algorithm development? In other words, is this really insider dealing or front running, or is this all just envy of people who have made massive investments in equipment and software development and are profiting from those investments?

I think the issue is one of rights. Is anyone being defrauded? I haven't seen anyone discuss this but it's more than just a tangential question, in my opinion. I think the issue is that someone is using a fast computer to make money and people don't like that. Therefore it must be stopped. The thinking goes "If stopping it is possible and it doesn't hurt me then why not ban it?"

What if it was an illiquid stock and your order would only be partially filled because some HF trader snaps up the shares you intended to buy? Then you'd either pay the higher price or wait. To larger institutions nearly every stock is illiquid within a certain time frame. To them, HFT this feels like a transaction tax. There are good reasons why "traditional" front running is prohibited. Orders are atomic operations. A HFT firm cannot snap up shares halfway your order. What they can do is snap up shares after your order is partially filled. Everybody can do that. Everybody could do that 200 years ago. To counter that you can use limit orders, 'click through the book' to fill your order completely, trade smaller chunks or whatever. Exchanges have always worked like that. Exactly. If I have a computer program to scan "item wanted" ads as well as "item for sale" ads on Craigslist and it finds someone selling an item for $10 and someone looking for the same item willing to pay $15. If my program automatically emails them both offering to buy/sell before they find out about each other, I have done nothing illegal. Everyone got what they wanted and I made a profit.

If you feel that way then you can make that argument about any situation. Bernie Madoff, Enron etc. You certainly could. Private thieves are a drop in the bucket compared to the theft on a colossal scale that taxation represents, but I don't think it is clear that HFT is theft. I know that when I place a limit order and it is executed at the price I was comfortable with, I don't really care if someone made a penny per share or less on the transaction. I got what I wanted.

IMHO, this is a lot to do about almost nothing. Compared to the extent retail investors are getting screwed by the IRS and their state taxing agencies whenever they make a profit this isn't even in the same ballpark. ballpark? Not even on the same planet.

This is how I look at it as well. I'm not a day trader trying to make a penny here and there per trade. I guess the only way it could effect you is if you set a buy limit to say $4 and because of the high frequency trading picking up all the $4 sell orders, maybe there was only a few of them that day, your order never gets filled. Of course you will never know this happened, you will just see that your order wasn't filled even though the stock dipped to $4 for a few seconds that day. If I intend to hold a stock for a year or 20, It doesn't effect me all that much if I pay a penny more and sell for a penny less.

Can a Woman make you rich? Ask Sen. John Kerry.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. I'm 41 years old, I lived about half my life without the internet, so I can certainly imagine it.

1) You didn't need to be rude about it. 2) You have no facts at all to make you think this was the case here. 3) By that standard, maybe you are a crackwhore projecting your own problems on others. Who knows, right? My theory, and this could be total incorrect, is that sex is such a strong drive in most people that they simply can't understand people for whom it is different. This is why homosexuality causes such strong feelings in many heterosexual people. They can't relate, they refuse to believe it even exists in some cases. The same applies to someone saying they have no interest. That is so far outside of what most of us can relate to that many will simply refuse to believe it or be offended by it. People are generally tolerant only within limits. Once you go outside those limits and start talking about something they don't/can't understand the venom starts flowing. You can see this with sex, religion, and politics. If you go too far outside a person's tolerance limits a valve blows and all rational thinking stops.

ScottHall, wow that's pretty hardcore. I think its great that you can do it. I couldn't. I'll admit that if I was single I could get away with much less in the home furnishings department, but there are still some basics I'd have. I'd need a table to eat, a desk for my computer, a comfortable reading chair, and, yes, a bed. I wouldn't necessarily need a frame, headboard, and all that, but I'd at least get a good thick Bob-o-pedic mattress, put it on the floor, throw a sheet set on it and a good blanket and pillow. I couldn't sleep on the ground every day. There's nothing wrong with being asexual either, it probably means you have much less trouble in your life than the average person. There are pluses and minuses to everything.

That can be said for anything that has ever existed. Exactly. Even looking at the poll question at the top of this thread. I voted "no", but I'm trying to think what you could replace "bitcoin" with to make me vote "yes". Nothing is a perfectly safe store of value. There are many things safer than bitcoin for the short and medium term, but nothing that is absolutely safe. Things change, black swans happen. The past is no guarantee of the future.

the previous articles didn't even say how he got the money. just that he left canada and had a bugatti. do you honestly think he advertised only on "penny stocks" searches? if i was running a pump and dump i would also advertise on searches smart(high income) people use. it was just an industry comment that advertising on "penny stocks" searches got super expensive because of this guy. it's like saying madoff is innocent because people didn't do their research. his investors were greedy too, but it wasn't probably the wrong greedy like in penny stocks. or that he's innocent because banks or someone else has done something similar. it's still wrong and should be punishable. He was just having people sign up for an email list and suggesting stocks to them. Maybe he had some "high income" subscribers, but not many "smart" people sign up for a pennystock email newsletter and buy anything it suggests. They were buying the stocks on their own with their own brokers. Madoff was running a fund, taking people's money, and lying about his investors money for years. He was sending people fraudulent statements. These people thought they owned something they didn't own. They thought he was earning them money all the while he was stealing it. There is a very big difference. If I email a bunch of people and tell them I think stock X is going to go up and it does, then I sell. Why is that a crime? I was correct that the stock was going to go up. However if I tell a bunch of people to give me money and I'll invest it for them, I then spend the money and send them a fraudulent statement implying that I invested it and it is earning a return, that is much worse. No comparison. This Buggatti driving 26 year old wasn't having anyone send him money. He didn't manage anyone's money. He wasn't selling investments. He ran an email newsletter giving advice. Should everyone involved with the Motley Fool be thrown in jail?

There was nothing in that article that described an innocent victim of this guy. If the article is correct his "victims" deserved everything they got and more. What he did isn't even close to as bad (not even in the same ballpark) as the whole life companies or annuities companies who do cold-call grandma and get her to turn over her entire life savings. And that is somehow legal. Involving dumb people who search for "penny stocks" on google in a pump and dump because they searched you out and are willing to invest in anything you tell them to, doesn't seem all that bad to me.

A quote from the article: "People just get an e-mail and they buy these things without doing any fundamental analysis... AwesomePennyStocks built a list of subscribers with keyword advertising on search engines, bidding up the price of phrases like “penny stocks” to more than $2 a click, Nicosia said. Its e-mails generated the most stock buying in the industry" They were targeting people searching Google for "penny stocks". So, these people would search Google for "penny stocks", click on the ad, join the e-mail list, then simply buy whatever they told them to buy. This isn't targeting the 90 year old widow with dementia, it is targeting people who are actively looking for a scam artist to steal their money from them. You shouldn't prosecute someone if they are simply giving people exactly what they are looking for.

Which restaurants offer anything under 3$? BeerBaron I bring my lunch. ;) I do it for a couple reason. Obviously, to save money, but also to avoid crap like hormones, antibiotics and GMOs. Exactly. This is one of the reasons I bring my lunch and almost never go out to eat period. You just never know exactly what you are consuming. Not only hormones, antibiotics and GMOs, but also, pesticides, high omega 6 oils, transfats, added sugars/corn syrups, grain fed meets, farmed fish, ..... on and on and on. 99% of it is junk food even at the most expensive restaurants. I don't want any of that crap in my body (or my kids' bodies) on a regular basis. Once in a while is fine, but not every day, or even every week. All that and you pay more for it.

It is better to trade in your Hyundai and Toyota to something like a Volvo. It is really unsafe, especially Toyota. I would never put my own life at risk. :) http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/toyota/camry/2013 Volvo is the only car in the small overlap test that didn't collapse the passenger structure. I only drive used cars, but I buy a 1-2 year old certified pre-owned Volvo and intend to drive it for the next 200k miles. A one year old certified pre-owned Volvo is just 60-70% of the price of a new, but it has 10 year 100k mile bumper to bumper warranty. I think it is a very good deal. My Toyota is a Sequoia SUV. Does Volvo make something that can seat 7 and pull a 5500lb camper? Yeah. Volvo XC 90 does that. I wouldn't recommend buying XC 90 though. The technology is way out of date. I am not sure about Sequoia's safety, so I can't comment on that. What is your MPG when towing? I bet it is like 5-7 MPG? I think it is best to use a diesel SUV for towing because that can increase your MPG to 15 or more. No XC90 max towing capacity 3790lbs. I wish there was a large diesel SUV available in the US. I don't want a pickup truck, because it has to double as a family car for around town. My Hyundai Elantra is my commuting car that gets the miles put on it. And yes, my mileage is horrible when towing, somewhere well bellow 10mpg and only about 15-16mpg highway when not towing. I'd love something the size of a Sequoia or Chevy Suburban with a massive amount of seating and towing capacity with a diesel engine. I don't know of one, but it has been a few years since I've shopped for a vehicle, so maybe there is one now.

It is better to trade in your Hyundai and Toyota to something like a Volvo. It is really unsafe, especially Toyota. I would never put my own life at risk. :) http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/toyota/camry/2013 Volvo is the only car in the small overlap test that didn't collapse the passenger structure. I only drive used cars, but I buy a 1-2 year old certified pre-owned Volvo and intend to drive it for the next 200k miles. A one year old certified pre-owned Volvo is just 60-70% of the price of a new, but it has 10 year 100k mile bumper to bumper warranty. I think it is a very good deal. My Toyota is a Sequoia SUV. Does Volvo make something that can seat 7 and pull a 5500lb camper?

5 years? All of our sofas are much older than that. We have one that is over 30 years old and one antique chaise lounge that is well over 80 years old (although we don't sit on it very often). We have an IKEA sofa that gets daily use that is over 5 years old and doing just fine. What exactly do you do on your sofas?.... wait ... maybe I don't want to know.

++++ Well said as always SD. I used to have the same mind set, brought up by an especially frugal father who wrote down every expense to the cent in agenda's. That changed when I found my current SO and started enjoying live more and when I learned about the uncertainties in life. As you said, use it as a servant as you can't take it with you in the end. If I would end up with almost nothing, I honestly believe I would adapt as well. The traveling, being generous to others, eating out, .. all experiences that you can't replace by hoarding all that cash and I wouldn't change them for any amount of money! I'm not a real big spender, but holy hell it is FUN to be free of the shackles cheapness and greed! (Not that I look down on others here that prefer a cheaper lifestyle. as long as it fits your personality, go for it!) I agree with you somewhat. We do splerge on things that are important to us. I pay about $18/lb for my coffee for instance. I justify this by never buying coffee by the cup outside the home (it is inferior anyway) and it is something I enjoy, so I spend the money. Luckily my wife and I aren't wine people, the only wine we buy is the cheap screw on cap variety for cooking. A $1000/bottle of wine has no appeal to me as I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. If you gave it to me as a gift I'd probably cook with it. :)

-Nobel laureate, and behavioral investing pioneer, Daniel Kahneman 50 REASONS WE’RE LIVING THROUGH THE GREATEST PERIOD IN WORLD HISTORY "You need an annual income of $34,000 a year to be in the richest 1% of the world, according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic’s 2010 book The Haves and the Have-Nots ... To be included in the top 0.1% requires an annual income of $70,000" This puts things into perspective. Most of the people a few years ago holding signs and wearing shirts claiming to be the "99%" in fact weren't.