60 Minutes lead story on Michael Lewis - Flash Boys

[ni-co]

CNBC discussion on HFT with Lewis and others.  Thanks to ValueWalk

 

http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/04/katsuyama-vs-obrien-heated-hft-debate-full-video/?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EMAIL_DAILY&utm_content=quick_link

 

;D Thanks for that link! Strangely resembles the discussion here  :P

[writser]

What I'd love to hear your opinion on: Do you agree that this is a (solvable) problem or do you say that this is how an efficient market should work?

 

I just watched the interview twice. I heard two tangible complaints:

 

1. The stock market is too fragmented.

2. Brokers are selling customer order information to HFT firms.

 

He also tries to make a third point but I didn't understand it: something about a terribly complex system enabling scalping. And it was a valid point because (drumroll): it was raised by Goldman Sachs! Yeah, if they voice a concern about unfair markets I'm sure we should implement it directly. Neutral bystander :o .

 

I'm not sure point 1 is a problem. Alternative exchanges popped up for a reason (mostly being cheaper). Some competition is good. Actually the heroes of the story exacerbated the problem by creating yet _another_ exchange.

 

Point 2 sounds bad. I don't know how this happens in practice. Again Lewis is a bit too fuzzy for my taste. Maybe the book is more clear. I'm no expert on retail brokerage. I do know that brokers are allowed to match orders internally and some other stuff but I don't know the specifics. My main problem here is that this has nothing to do with High Frequency Trading. Sounds more like getting screwed by your broker. Even Michael Lewis is saying: "This has nothing to do with speed. Technology has brought huge benefits" or something.

 

So yeah, we should fix that and fix all other possible problems but after that there will still be a guy with a faster computer that tries to buy shares on other exchanges in case you try to buy a shitload everywhere (i.e. your example). It's not frontrunning: it's speculation. And I think that is the best market model we currently have. I saw a nice twitter post from Kiddynamite that pretty much sums up my feelings:

 

 

Now watching the HFT debate. Sounds like this topic indeed! 2v1, Otsog and Ni-Co vs Writser :). Cheers.

[writser]

I don't like the Asian guy. Always smiling because he knows he represents the moral highground to the general public. Meanwhile trying to promote his own exchange as an alternative. After having worked as a trader for a couple of years and selling HFT software to his clients. Ultimate hypocrite.

 

Believe it or not, I actually symphatize for Michael Lewis. At least he is trying to raise some valid concerns. However, he has always been a bit too populistic for my tastes. He uses some funny buzzwords and simplified examples to make his point and that makes people think they understand a wildly complex subject, sprint to their computers and yell 'frontrunning!' 'we need longer cables!' 'HFT makes me sick!' without understanding at all how stock markets actually work. Or are supposed to work. As happens in this thread. That is detrimental to an (otherwise interesting) discussion.

[JSArbitrage]

Believe it or not, I actually symphatize for Michael Lewis. At least he is trying to raise some valid concerns. However, he has always been a bit too populistic for my tastes. He uses some funny buzzwords and simplified examples to make his point and that makes people think they understand a wildly complex subject, sprint to their computers and yell 'frontrunning!' 'we need longer cables!' 'HFT makes me sick!' without understanding at all how stock markets actually work. Or are supposed to work. As happens in this thread. That is detrimental to an (otherwise interesting) discussion.

 

Michael Lewis usually writes book about complex subjects in order to educate the average person.  So it makes sense he takes complex subjects and boils it down to simple examples.  That's like saying you hate biographers because they take a lifetime of experiences and crush it down to 200 pages.  It's kind of what they do man.

[Palantir]

Haven't read this book, but in all of his other books he really seemed to have a habit of exaggerating all the personalities profiled. In Blind Side, he makes Michael Oher look like a superman LT, which he isn't, he makes Ed Orgeron look like a cartoon character etc etc.

[benhacker]

@benhacker, @writser

Are you disagreeing with anything Lewis has to say in this video?

 

He highlights:

 

1) Selling order flow to "HFT" (really, order flow is sold to all kinds of firms)

 

-- I personally don't think this should be legal.  It has nothing to do with HFT.  Generally RETAIL order flow can be sold, because most market makers WANT it because retail orders are on average dumb money.  The spreads in the exchange have to price in a risk for trading with smart money, the spreads to retail can be lower because in generally you can be safe you aren't trading with a knowledgable party.  I personally don't like selling order flow because it reduces market liquidity (centralized liquidity).... so I would be happy if the SEC decided that this is a hidden cost to the system, but I struggle with how much regulation should be added here... I think IB using this (not selling to internalizers) as a selling point, so perhaps that's a market based solution that will win out over time.

 

2) Brokers not handling orders properly is another thing he highlights (at least as I understand it)

 

-- I believe this is separate from selling order flow, basically this is EXCHANGES paying for routing flow to them. (from big institutional brokers like JPM, etc) but again, I haven't read the book, so I'm not clear.  Perhaps some exchange is closest to NY, so they want the orders smart routed there first so they can arb other exchanges through direct pipes, with lower latency?  I don't know.  Seems like this should be "legal", but in reality market participants should understand what exchange they should route to to get the best fill... if brokers are playing money managers, it seems that money managers could pretty quickly determine which broker gives them the best fills.  The stories about JPM not doing what the customer says in terms of order routing should immediately result in a lawsuit and a loss of business... but it didn't seem like that was happening.  The whole behavior of people involved here in this story is mystifying to me honestly.

 

---- He says a lot of other stuff, but I'm not really seeing a clear statement.  Writster says he made some comments about complexity and fragmentation... I think those are probably valid, but other than saying that big investors didn't understand the structure of the market they were operating in (I find this amazing for TROW / Fidelity to say by the way, I would think they would be held liable if that is the case).  I personally think 10 exchanges is crazy, but I don't know if legislating fewer exchanges is the right answer... seems the most transparent liquid exchange will win... it's a natural monopoly... I'm curious to read the book to see if there are more details on this.  He commentary from that video is really just confusing to me.  He says nothing.

 

In the end, this issue seems really minor to me.  It's only been 20 years since you only really could buy / sell with full priced commissions, and spreads were 1/8th minimum.  I'm all for improving things, but it seems not that relevant for long term investors (even large ones) which is what the SEC should designed to encourage / protect.  If you just route your order to NYSE or NASDAQ and look at their order book as all the liquidity there is, there is no issue.  Perhaps the solution is that NYSE / NASDAQ will have to lower their fees to stop the erosion of share in the industry... maybe the market is working?  Overall I would put other basic regulatory functions way ahead of this issue (short selling disclosure, pump & dumps, fraud)... that's not to say improvements can't be made.

 

If I missed a clear statement that ML made, please feel free to repeat.  I find this area interesting, last year I began doing some research on this space coupled with my position in IBKR and read a few textbooks on exchanges, and I truly feel only moderately educated here, but I really think a lot of this is overblown and well within the realm of "reasonable people" could disagree on how to go forward.

 

Thanks in advance for any follow up discussion.

 

Ben

[Gamecock-YT]

he makes Ed Orgeron look like a cartoon character etc etc.

 

But to be fair, Coach O is a cartoon character.

 

 

[Guest 50centdollars]

Bill O'Brien is very childish.

[OracleofCarolina]

That was one heated debate..I guess that's what happens when somebody's business is about to get disrupted...definitely worth taking 20 minutes and watching

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000263252

 

[Otsog]

1. The stock market is too fragmented.

I'm not sure point 1 is a problem. Alternative exchanges popped up for a reason (mostly being cheaper). Some competition is good. Actually the heroes of the story exacerbated the problem by creating yet _another_ exchange.

 

It is the stock market fragmentation combined with the exploitation of Reg NMS that is causing the issue.  Reg NMS creates a loophole that allows the scalping.  Saying the problem is being exacerbated by IEX is blatantly false. 

 

My main problem here is that this has nothing to do with High Frequency Trading. Sounds more like getting screwed by your broker. Even Michael Lewis is saying: "This has nothing to do with speed. Technology has brought huge benefits" or something.

 

This has a lot to do with HFT.  No one in this thread has decried the amazing advantages computerized trading has brought.  HFT is simply a new tool we can apply thanks to new technology.  A lot of it is good, part of it simply parasitic. But for HFT, the Reg NMS loophole would not be happening. Period. 

 

So yeah, we should fix that and fix all other possible problems but after that there will still be a guy with a faster computer that tries to buy shares on other exchanges in case you try to buy a shitload everywhere (i.e. your example). It's not frontrunning: it's speculation. And I think that is the best market model we currently have. I saw a nice twitter post from Kiddynamite that pretty much sums up my feelings:

 

It's not speculation when you never lose.  They are paying for an asymmetric informational advantage. 

 

 

[writser]

The problem you describe arises from a conflict of interest between you and your broker and has nothing to do with HFT. The way you phrase it makes it sound as if HFT firms pay a monthly fee to brokers to gain access to order data. That is not true (at least that would be illegal) - brokers choose to trade on specific exchanges because they interpret reg-NMS literally and not how it was designed to be used. But any decent broker (IB, for example) lets you choose on which exchange to trade and passes through (at least partially) rebate fees and commissions, sidestepping the whole problem. Check this out:

 

http://image.bayimg.com/f9de38255ac7a9dd774facdf2b480d01f2696e70.jpg

 

(Also, you could just use limit orders and be a little bit patient!) So yeah, you have to do some research and yeah, people will get screwed. But is this a problem caused by HFT? No. Nobody is forcing you to trade with HFT firms on specific exchanges. Also, why are you first suggesting we need " fibre optic spools 30 nano seconds long" in every exchange? I hope you see now that that wouldn't solve any problem. I get the impression you are talking first and doing research later. That said, I agree with you that reg-NMS compliant order routers are not doing what they were designed to do and that should be fixed. It's your brokers problem though - he is routing your orders. Cheers :) .

 

[writser]

On a tangent: why would Goldman oppose High Frequency Trading? link .

 

The investment bank is exploring a sale of its designated market-maker unit, which it bought in 2000 as part of its acquisition of the trading firm Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, according to a person briefed on the matter. At the time, Goldman paid $6.5 billion for the firm, which operated three core businesses: securities clearing and execution, floor-based market making and off-floor market making. Goldman is valuing the unit at about $30 million, a sign of just how much technology has changed the way Wall Street conducts its business.

 

Gary Cohn, Goldman’s chief operating officer, wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month. “The risks associated with this fragmentation and complexity are amplified by the dramatic increase in the speed of execution and trading communications.”

We want our floor trading back!

[ni-co]

I try to sum up the discussion and thereby avoid talking at cross-purposes:

 

One side (HFT) keeps saying: Receiving an information advantage by beating others at being faster at reacting to market action is the way markets should work. If somebody orders shares and therefore indicates his interest in buying, there is nothing immoral in snapping up a part of those shares and selling it to him at a higher price (or raising the price of shares you already hold on offer in anticipation of his order). Nobody knows other participants' orders with 100% certainty, it is always guessing and there is always the risk of guessing wrong. 

 

The other side (Michael Lewis & Co.) argues: Speed can be dysfunctional to markets (if not immoral), namely anytime it is used to intercept a specific order (or at least part of it). To make this point very clear: We are not talking about anticipating an order, whereby I define "anticipate" as acting before the order exists (in contrast to reacting as soon as this order hits the first exchange). To anticipate an order you have to bear market risk and you have to provide liquidity. Nobody says anything against that – this is classic market making. And if this was all HFT did, all power to them!

 

But unfortunately, this seems not to be everything. What we are talking about is reacting to an already existing order, more specifically: to the already existing acceptance to an already existing matching offer. Essentially, this is intercepting* the acceptance before it meets the offer it was directed towards and outrunning it. This is not market making, in my opinion this doesn't even provide liquidity and the market risk you have to take to do this is infinitesimal. In a functioning market place this shouldn't be possible. It's also clear to me that sometimes this is done by creating a "fake" offer and retracting or changing it before the acceptance message hits the exchange; but this doesn't change one thing. There is no justification for doing that either. Lewis calls this "fake liquidity", and rightly so imo.

 

To sum up: It is all about acting before the fact vs. reacting after the fact. And in this context the Lewis quote cited by Otsog above makes very much sense to me:

 

Why did the market in any given stock dry up only when he was trying to trade in it? To make his point, he asked the developers to stand behind him and watch while he traded. “I’d say: ‘Watch closely. I am about to buy 100,000 shares of AMD. I am willing to pay $15 a share. There are currently 100,000 shares of AMD being offered at $15 a share — 10,000 on BATS, 35,000 on the New York Stock Exchange, 30,000 on Nasdaq and 25,000 on Direct Edge.’ You could see it all on the screens. We’d all sit there and stare at the screen, and I’d have my finger over the Enter button. I’d count out loud to five. . . .

 

“ ‘One. . . .

 

“ ‘Two. . . . See, nothing’s happened.

 

“ ‘Three. . . . Offers are still there at 15. . . .

 

“ ‘Four. . . . Still no movement. . . .

 

“ ‘Five.’ Then I’d hit the Enter button, and — boom! — all hell would break loose. The offerings would all disappear, and the stock would pop higher.”

 

At which point he turned to the developers behind him and said: “You see, I’m the event. I am the news.”

 

------------------

 

* Just to clarify what I mean by "intercepting" orders: This doesn't mean knowledge (= 100% certainty) of the order. Knowledge is not necessary, it's enough that you are able to take a very, very educated guess. Let's say 90% of the time you guess correctly, just to put a number on it (maybe it's just 51% but I'd be surprised if you'd never have a losing day in years with only 51% certainty). The point is anticipation (=action) vs. guessing after the fact (=reaction). Even being right only 51% of the time doesn't change a thing, because real buyers and real sellers pay for HFT being wrong in 49% of the time taken all together.

[Guest 50centdollars]

In March, Virtu Financial stunned Wall Street with news that it had pulled off

the finance equivalent of a perfect game of baseball. The trading firm, hardly a

Goldman Sachs or a Morgan Stanley, somehow made money in the stock markets on

1,277 out of 1,278 days. It lost money just one day in nearly five years.

 

They must be cheating somehow lol.

 

Its like a baseball player getting a hit on every at bat and bating 1000%

 

 

 

 

[rkbabang]

In March, Virtu Financial stunned Wall Street with news that it had pulled off

the finance equivalent of a perfect game of baseball. The trading firm, hardly a

Goldman Sachs or a Morgan Stanley, somehow made money in the stock markets on

1,277 out of 1,278 days. It lost money just one day in nearly five years.

 

They must be cheating somehow lol.

 

Its like a baseball player getting a hit on every at bat and bating 1000%

 

There are plenty of businesses in the world that have been profitable every day for the last 5 years.

 

"They must be cheating somehow lol"  is a good summary of all the anti-HFT arguments I've seen, both here and elsewhere, in the last few days.

 

[dcollon]

From WSJ this morning

 

High-Frequency Hyperbole - By Cliff S. Asness and Michael Mendelson

High-Frequency_Hyperbole_-_WSJ.pdf

[writser]

There are plenty of businesses in the world that have been profitable every day for the last 5 years.

 

"They must be cheating somehow lol"  is a good summary of all the anti-HFT arguments I've seen, both here and elsewhere, in the last few days.

 

Not to mention that the record was only about 'trading results', ignoring the depreciation of enormous investments in hard- and software and ignoring the financing of their heavily leveraged balance sheet.

[ItsAValueTrap]

I find this area interesting, last year I began doing some research on this space coupled with my position in IBKR and read a few textbooks on exchanges, and I truly feel only moderately educated here, but I really think a lot of this is overblown and well within the realm of "reasonable people" could disagree on how to go forward.

 

Thomas Peterffy, the CEO of IBKR and somebody who made his first fortune in market making, delivered a pretty scathing speech which you can find here:

http://www.futuresmag.com/2010/10/12/thomas-peterffy-world-federation-of-exchanges-keyn

 

"Are market makers necessary in mature markets? I am not sure."  <-- Coming from somebody who made his first fortune in market making.

 

2- I am really surprised that nobody has mentioned sub-penny front running.  Clearly it is a form of skimming.

 

3- To be fair, trading costs (explicit commissions + skimming) are lower than ever before.

 

4- I'm not sure why some people say that retail investors have it better than institutional investors.  Retail order flow often gets routed to internalization companies like Knight Capital Group, where they play all sorts of games with retail orders.

[Otsog]

The problem you describe arises from a conflict of interest between you and your broker and has nothing to do with HFT. The way you phrase it makes it sound as if HFT firms pay a monthly fee to brokers to gain access to order data. That is not true (at least that would be illegal) - brokers choose to trade on specific exchanges because they interpret reg-NMS literally and not how it was designed to be used. But any decent broker (IB, for example) lets you choose on which exchange to trade and passes through (at least partially) rebate fees and commissions, sidestepping the whole problem. Check this out:

 

http://image.bayimg.com/f9de38255ac7a9dd774facdf2b480d01f2696e70.jpg

 

When I say they are paying for an informational advantage I am including everything: fibre optic infrastructure, buying order flow, bait orders, flash orders.  None of which add anything of value to the market at all.  In the book IEX explains how they hired puzzle masters who had previously won the Microsoft College Puzzle competition specifically to figure out the tricks HFT firms were using to extract cheap information from the markets.  If I recall correctly they claimed to have discovered ~50 different strategies.

 

That picture isn't loading for me, not sure if it's my internet.

 

 

(Also, you could just use limit orders and be a little bit patient!)

 

That's a pretty good example of the problem, why do I have to be patient to complete publicly offered orders?  Because someone spent millions of dollars to co-locate?  These guys aren't arbitraging between exchanges offering different prices on a good, they are literally inhibiting the ability to purchase a good at a publicly offered price.  Investors are making purchase decisions based on fundamental analysis, news headlines, tea leaves etc. and HFT firms are making purchase decisions based solely on intercepting investors decisions.  Your argument that it is speculation is weak as ni-co articulated very well above.  They have found a way to game the system to skew the odds heavily in their favour.

 

 

So yeah, you have to do some research and yeah, people will get screwed. But is this a problem caused by HFT? No. Nobody is forcing you to trade with HFT firms on specific exchanges.

 

Michael Lewis and Co.  said it was a combination of HFT, Exchanges and Brokers/Banks.  HFT is getting more of the heat because they are the driver.  They are the head of the snake.  They are the ones calling up NASDAQ, Direct Edge, NYSE, BATS and using their trading volume as a threat to get what they want.  I don't particularly care what happens to those exchanges, ideally they would go down as well. 

 

 

Also, why are you first suggesting we need " fibre optic spools 30 nano seconds long" in every exchange? I hope you see now that that wouldn't solve any problem.

 

That's exactly one of the strategies IEX is using.  That along with providing high speed access to the other exchanges offers investors the ability to actually act on publicly offered goods.  I initially mused it would have to be in all exchanges, but you only have to send order to IEX and as they are slowing down the HFT's they will check the other public exchanges for you.  I imagine they would do that using a Thor like application to ensure they are not getting scalped. 

 

I get the impression you are talking first and doing research later.

 

I knew nothing about this at the onset absolutely!  I'm learning as I go and am definitely very ignorant on a lot of the machinations at play here. 

 

I am trying not to overstep or slip into hyperbole, but the prima facie nature of the abuse here is staggering.  There is comforting social proof in the public comments of Munger, Einhorn, Loeb, Ackman etc.  The deeper you go down the rabbit hole, the uglier it gets.

 

That said, I agree with you that reg-NMS compliant order routers are not doing what they were designed to do and that should be fixed. It's your brokers problem though - he is routing your orders.

 

It's the investors problem!  The HFT/Exchange/Broker cronyism is profiting from this.  The whole point of what Michael Lewis/IEX is doing is to squash the problem so the investor isn't encumbered. 

 

However the HFT/Exchange/Broker's want to point fingers at each other I couldn't care less.   

 

Cheers :)

 

You too!

 

Have you started (or plan to start?) the book yet?

 

 

 

[Guest longinvestor]

From WSJ this morning
 
High-Frequency Hyperbole - By Cliff S. Asness and Michael Mendelson

 
Nice article and simplest-worded summary of this subject. The thesis is very simple, computing and data transmission trumping human effort. Good old productivity game, there are early and late adopters of technology. The latter will complain, loudly as they have done in agriculture and manufacturing.
 
It does not matter one bit for me as I have had about 10 trades total since 2009. Now, if this question were to be posed at the BRK meeting to WEB/CM, what would they say about HFT? I'll take a swag, please chime in

[constructive]

IEX's plan is to discriminate against certain types of market behaviors. Let's wait for evidence on whether it is actually more efficient than the other exchanges that allow HFT. If not, they will not take much market share. (Well, unless they are less efficient but succeed in scaring people about HFT.)

 

I will point out that Interactive Brokers has noticeably better execution than other discount brokers. If you use Ameritrade, Etrade, Scottrade, etc. maybe you should fix the big source of leakage before worrying about a tiny source.

[Otsog]

How can it be that a discussion thread that stretches into the 100's of posts not have Level (3) mentioned, ha.

 

That sounds interesting, could you contribute your thoughts in further detail?

[writser]

I knew nothing about this at the onset absolutely!  I'm learning as I go and am definitely very ignorant on a lot of the machinations at play here.

I started to reply but frankly what's the point. You already made up your mind and your arguments come in on a page-by-page basis while reading the book. You admit that you are ignorant about the subject but somehow you are sure that the abuse is 'staggering' and that we ideally should shut down the NYSE and NASDAQ (after rolling out excess fiber cable everywhere). That's not a rational way to approach the subject.

 

I agree with you there are some problems that should be solved but let's put this into perspective. Assume you are a value investor with a $1m portfolio. Annual turnover is 50%. You buy everything directly from the offer, sell everything directly on the bid and all your trades are routed to an exchange where you get scalped for a penny. Let's assume the average stock is worth $20. Annual costs? $1.000.000 * 50% / $20 = 25k stocks traded, yearly costs: $250. Drag on performance: 0.03% per annum. That's pretty much the worst case scenario. Switch to a decent broker or enter limit orders behind the market and you avoid all these costs. I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I personally couldn't care less, I'm happy with the excess liquidity and give them a penny every once in a while.

 

Certainly not worthy to write yet another book about. I'm also a lousy writer in comparison to Lewis! His description of Greg Lippmann was awesome. I will definitely read Flash Boys too.

[Guest longinvestor]

How can it be that a discussion thread that stretches into the 100's of posts not have Level (3) mentioned, ha.

 

That sounds interesting, could you contribute your thoughts in further detail?

 

Old joke on CoBF. There is (was, I should say) a long, really long discussion thread on Level (3) in the investment ideas folder. Likely the most discussed forum on CoBF. Also on other portals like Yahoo as well. And kinda like this thread, it was mostly a dialogue between a few zealous posters. Now, since Level (3) is a trans-business segment provider of bandwidth, sooner or later, discussions in other forums invariably lead to Level (3), powered by the zeal of the faithful. Then others, less vested, got in, some of the discussion got heated, personal etc. Level (3) turned into a swear word around here, to some at least. There is some irony for me in the Level 3 discussion forum after all. The business and the stock are doing well after all. Much value was being created in the business all along. Seems like that got lost in the noise of ego matches between forum posters.

[Otsog]

I knew nothing about this at the onset absolutely!  I'm learning as I go and am definitely very ignorant on a lot of the machinations at play here.

I started to reply but frankly what's the point. You already made up your mind and your arguments come in on a page-by-page basis while reading the book. You admit that you are ignorant about the subject but somehow you are sure that the abuse is 'staggering' and that we ideally should shut down the NYSE and NASDAQ (after rolling out excess fiber cable everywhere). That's not a rational way to approach the subject.

 

I agree with you there are some problems that should be solved but let's put this into perspective. Assume you are a value investor with a $1m portfolio. Annual turnover is 50%. You buy everything directly from the offer, sell everything directly on the bid and all your trades are routed to an exchange where you get scalped for a penny. Let's assume the average stock is worth $20. Annual costs? $1.000.000 * 50% / $20 = 25k stocks traded, yearly costs: $250. Drag on performance: 0.03% per annum. That's pretty much the worst case scenario. Switch to a decent broker or enter limit orders behind the market and you avoid all these costs. I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I personally couldn't care less, I'm happy with the excess liquidity and give them a penny every once in a while.

 

Certainly not worthy to write yet another book about. I'm also a lousy writer in comparison to Lewis! His description of Greg Lippmann was awesome. I will definitely read Flash Boys too.

 

 

1.  I said I am ignorant about a lot of the machinations at play here and am learning about the subject.  If the requirement for honest discourse here is a thorough understanding you wouldn't be qualified either. 

 

2. I have not made up my mind.  I am waiting for a logical counter argument.  Your only argument is that "it's not that bad".  You sound like the Wizard of Oz 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

 

3.  I didn't say the abuse is staggering.  I said the prima facie nature of the abuse is staggering.  I find the inability to complete a transaction on a publicly offered good staggering.  Your counter to that has only been non-applicable analogies about exchange arbitrage and that this has been happening on public exchanges forever.  I think it has been plainly and logically argued many times in this thread that what is happening now bears almost no resemblance to arbitrage. 

 

4. If I am too stupid and biased to continue discourse with would you address ni-co's latest post?