Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/02/2011 20:56 -0400
* After Hours
* Free Money
For those who thought the crocodile algo or the fractal HFT patterns were crazy, you ain't seen nothing yet. Earlier today, Nanex caught arguably the most berserk HFT algorithm yet captured on film, or jpeg as the case may be, in the trading of Earthlink stock shortly after hours. What happened next is one for the ages... Because it certainly will not make it to the regulators. In essence, we had our first spotted appearance of the Whack-A-Mole algorithm, which allowed one, if one is fast enough, and incidentally one isn't, as all the bids would be cancelled at the same time as they were sent out, to make free money on a 10% trading spread between the bid and ask. Gone is any pretense of an NBBO, gone is any pretense of an orderly market: it is the wild, electronic, and nanosecond west out there.
Per Nanex:
It's wack-a-mole, if you can hit the bid and offer fast enough, it's instant money!
On August 2nd, right after regular trading closed at 16:00, ELNK perfectly illustrates the illusion of modern trading. Gone are luddite meanings of bids and offers, where a bid really meant someone wanted to buy and an offer was a legitimate offer of stock. Today's bids and offers are beautiful to behold. And boy they are fast! How fast? Faster than you could ever hope to hit them. So shut up, sit back, and leave it to the professionals.
ELNK - EARTHLINK
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/step-right-its-hft-whack-mole-time?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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