Nanex CEO: 'HFT Makes A Mockery Of Markets'
'It's all about one class of people who are not following the rules. It's that simple.'
-- Eric Hunsader, CEO of Nanex on High-Frequency Trading
-- Photo by William Banzai7
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Guest post by John Titus, producer of Bailout.
HFT Mocks Law, Allows Elite To Steal Even More
High-frequency computer trading now accounts for between 70% and 84% of volume on the New York Stock Exchange, yet receives scant attention in the popular media. And with good reason: HFT represents yet another triumph of criminals over the Rule of Law whereby the ultra-wealthy use HFT to steal from the rest of us via illegal practices like quote-stuffing and front-running with the assistance of the government.
Call it Criminal Welfare Chic.
Below, Lauren Lyster of Capital Account interviews Eric Hunsader, whose firm Nanex gathers, analyzes, and packages exchange data that summarize high-frequency trading activity in the markets.
Hunsader has been in the data collection business since the advent of high-frequency trading in 1987—three months before the record-breaking market crash in October of that year (a record of which Hunsader has memorialized on a floppy diskette). This makes Hunsader one of the world’s leading experts—if not the leading expert--on high-frequency trading.
Lyster, who is easily the best interviewer in all of daily financial television, does a superb job of eliciting jargon-free disclosures from Hunsader that cut to the core of high-frequency trading. Like virtually all other "markets" today, HFT is characterized by regulations that are selectively enforced, i.e., the rich and powerful break the law with complete impunity, stealing from everyone else while regulators look the other way and apply regulations punitively to little people (not big enough to have cabinet members and congressmen on speed dial).
Towards the end of the interview, Hunsader exposes the one essential truth that’s altogether ignored in the regulation-deregulation debates that rage in their internecine promotion of the Left-Right divide: “if you’re not going to enforce regulations that you already have, you have no business creating new ones.”
Again we see an instance where the Left, which complains about too much corporate power, and the Right, which complains about too much government, are mysteriously blind to the fact that they are both correct now that corporations and the state have merged into a single entity politely known as Fascism, wherein the interests of a tiny elite are advanced through rampant illegality.
At the end of the interview, Lyster and Hunsader finger the real reason behind the overtly coordinated crackdown on Occupy Wall Street, namely, its organically viable threat to unite under one flag two forces that the Corporate State absolutely needs to be at each other’s throats: those who demand transparent and fair markets free of officious government intermeddling, and those who demand that lawless mega-corporate predators be reigned in:
"High-frequency trading is the poster child that the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been looking for. You just don’t know it yet."
Lauren Lyster interviews Nanex Chief Eric Hunsader - Oct. 18, 2012
Transcript
LL: When did it [high-frequency trading] really explode?
EH: July of ’87 was the first footprints of when we saw them testing these new algos that were blasting lots of fake orders in the market.
[Ed.—To frame that, Paul Volcker stepped down as Chairman of the Federal Reserve and was replaced by Alan Greenspan in August 1987, and the stock market experienced its biggest one-day crash ever—22% down—on October 18, 1987 (a record that stands to this day).]
LL: After the passage of Reg. NMS, you saw kind of an explosion [of HFT] go on. Why was that a pivotal turning point?
EH: Well, Reg. NMS is regulations that were debated in the industry in 2006 and—well, in 2006. And it was passed in February of 2007, and that really changed the structure of the market. It took them about a couple of months to learn how to exploit it.
LL: But then exploit away they did, right?
EH: Yes.
LL: So then let’s talk about some of the issues, and the concerns surrounding high-frequency trading from market participants—both for individual investors, retail investors, but also the impact on the market as a whole, because it’s hard for me to imagine that it’s good for the ecosystem.
EH: Well, it’s destroyed the diversity of participants. It boils down to: they chased away everybody who can’t compete on speed, people who aren’t willing to invest in millions of dollars in equipment, hire a staff of quants, et cetera, et cetera. Basically you have to do that now to have the same informational—on par that you did before Reg. NMS.
LL: What about for the average trader, though? Should it matter to them that they can’t exploit a millisecond?
EH: No, not at all. The problem is, is that—well, there are a couple problems. One is, without diversity in participants, whenever something unexpected happens—like perhaps, Google this afternoon—it can severely impact the market in way that could cause prices based on stock market closing prices. It could severely affect the economy.
EH: And so that risk is there because people—the diversity of participants who have different viewpoints on the market, and may be willing to buy the market [when it’s] 10% down, aren’t gonna be there to do that because the information that they’re receiving is delayed or is untrusted or the exchanges might selectively cancel some orders and others. They’re going to be reluctant to pull the trigger. And so you don’t really have that buying power available. It’s not there any more.
LL: And is there a problem, too, that without those folks in the market, you have the algos that are all reacting, that are providing the illusion of liquidity, and that they’re all programmed to pull out when they catch any sign that things are awry?
EH: Oh, yes. We saw that today. We saw liquidity just evaporate—from Google! Which was pretty surprising to see it impact the market like it did. We went from a pretty moderate, okay day to absolute—absolute, well, we were on the edge. As long as no other bad news came out for the rest of the day, we’d be fine. But one day we’re not gonna be so lucky. We’re not gonna get away from that.
EH: The other thing that the average investor has to face now, every once in awhile, when they go to buy or sell, they’re going to be facing this pocket of liquidity where all of a sudden, if they make a mistake, like for example use a market order, which by the way, when a regulator tells you that you’re not supposed to use market orders, it’s usually a pretty good sign that you don’t have a market anymore. Let’s say he makes a mistake, or he doesn’t have his supercomputers on and he’s not processing the data fast enough and he makes a mistake and enters in the wrong price, today he’s gonna get that—if the price is not in his favor—he’s gonna get that price.
* * *
LL: Which is the more exploitative or the edge, really, coming from? Is it coming from the algorithmic software or is it coming more from the speed?
EH: You know, it’s not really whether it’s algorithmic or high-frequency or some kind of a phone [ph.]. It’s about exploiting the regulations. It’s about not following the rules. Reg. NMS lays out the rules, and it’s—we’re mainly concerned with—we’re not concerned with how fast trading goes. We’re concerned with those who break the rules.
* * *
LL: One of the things that I often hear from folks that watch this is that it’s just gotten so fast, and regulators are just so behind, and so late to the party. I wanna know your view on that especially since last month we did get a fine from the S.E.C. to the New York Stock Exchange from them getting information more quickly to proprietary—the people who have their proprietary fee versus everyone else. So what do you think is the state of the regulation of this industry?
EH: Well, you know, the high-frequency trading debate, you don’t have to understand microseconds or high technology. It’s really all about one class of people who are not following the rules. It’s that simple. And the fine levied by the S.E.C. was simply enforcing the rules for the first time since Reg. NMS passed.
EH: And probably more important than the fine itself was the worrying in [sic: about] the fine, which spelled out: you can’t do this; these things are not legal. These things have become some commonplace that, you know, my fear was that the S.E.C. was gonna go full tilt and now start enforcing this. Well, we’re not going to have anyone trading the next day on Wall Street, because it’s that common.
LL: Wow. But do you see an impact when you’re looking at your screens after we have that enforcement action, or there was another against a firm for layering and Knight Capital, [S.E.C. Chairman] Mary Schapiro wouldn’t cancel the trades for Knight. So what impact do you see?
EH: Well, that’s interesting. So I don’t know about you, but I don’t I have a private—Mary Schapiro’s private number, and I can’t call her up when my trade goes bad. I mean, the gall that he would even make that phone call is like, wow. It just shows you: there are two classes of people here.
EH: We have seen significant changes—improvements—on the data side. And we suspect—my suspicion is that the reason you’re seeing some of these high-frequency trading firms close up is because these—they see the writing on the wall. They know if they can’t exploit (break) the rule, if they can’t, that would not lead to profitability. They’re gonna pull out.
EH: And it’s interesting. They’re claiming that it’s not profitable now when it wasn’t very long ago that some of them had 90 days straight, in a row, of profitability, which is just unbelievable that they would announce that. You’d think they’d throw a couple of negative days in there just, um [laughs], so people didn’t raise their eyebrows.
LL: Right, right. So you think that these stories about high-frequency trading firms shutting because they can’t be as profitable any more. You think it’s actually more tied to the fact that they’re starting to be regulated, you think?
EH: Yes. I’m sure of it. I’m sure of it.
LL: Wow. And you actually do notice a difference in the manipulative processes on your screen since these enforcement actions?
EH: Absolutely. It’s crystal clear. Night and day.
LL: Wow. So do you think there needs to be more actions, kill switch or transaction tax, or do you think that these just need to be enforced—what’s on the books?
EH: If we would enforce what’s on the books, we wouldn’t need a transaction tax. We wouldn’t need a minimum quote life. We wouldn’t need any of the things that they’re proposing.
EH: And really, if they’re going to try to pass new regulations, when they’re not going to enforce existing regulations, who’s going to take them seriously? I wouldn’t take them seriously. I mean, if you’re not going to enforce regulations that you already have, you have no business creating new ones.
LL: I totally hear you there. Real quickly before we go, then, what ‘s your best advice for the average investor if they want to have a fair market?
EH: Call your congressman and demand that the rules be followed. It’s that simple.
LL: And I just want one more second before we go. Should Occupy Wall Street be on the street protesting this? You mentioned them.
EH: High-frequency trading is the poster child that the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been looking for. You just don’t know it yet.
Feb 20, 2013 at 4:17 AM
Reader Comments (26)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323622904578129210389143012.html
Representative snippet (among many good ones):
"SEC investigators have been looking at exchange order types for more than a year. The agency's enforcement division has been investigating whether exchanges have provided some high-speed traders details about how order types work that other firms didn't receive, allowing them in some cases to jump ahead of ordinary investors."
Hunsader said something very interesting at about the 21:00 mark in the show, namely, that when confronted with Nanex data showing either blatant manipulation or scary fast price swings, the S.E.C.'s stance is simply that it doesn't believe Nanex's data. Finally fed up with the S.E.C.'s the-sky-is-not-blue denials, Nanex offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who could provide trading data for one 17-SECOND time span on an exchange during which, Hunsader contended, no trading at all occurred. No one stepped forward, and the reward money remains unclaimed.
Hunsader says that lightning-fast price swings occur in about 7 issues every day on American exchanges, and that it's only a matter of time before they all go at once in a meta-flash crash, except we won't call it that because it will dwarf 5/6/10 and wipe out everything.
Lyster and Hunsader also discussed the complaint filed yesterday in federal district court against the Secretion Exchange Commission and Mary Schapiro's balls-deep involvement in that whole viscous web.
http://youtu.be/N1ouo0aeO7o
sceeto is one of the first small companies anywhere in the world that tracks the hft's in real time across various markets. Have a look for yourself ,Carl Weiss has done numerous videos on these algos. http://www.sceeto.com
The chief software developer of sceeto he has for a decade tested to come up with software designed a system to sniff these out and try to at least again level the playing field a bit for the ordinary investor.
It's people like Eric from Nanex and Carl Weiss that are stopping us ordinary investors from getting done over even more !!!
That's a hell of a resource. Hadn't heard of Sceeto. Thx.
Yeah, you can tell Eric H. is a regular red-blooded American male. I noticed that when he appeared on Capital Account the next time (earlier this week), he went to the trouble of making the trek from Chicago to D.C. so he make an in-studio appearance, where he seemed at times to struggle through the spell Lauren had cast over him, heh heh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_86swYH6P8Q&list=UU8eFERtcxPZ-M3Cxkh7zhtQ&index=3&feature=plcp
She does a terrific job with her interviews. But damnation, man, that woman is F-I-N-E. Mon Dieu. Her mockery of MSM reporters is pretty well total.
Thinking...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-20/gold-einstein-and-great-fed-robbery
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-advantage-high-frequency-trading-firms-have-over-everyone-else-2015-08-13?link=MW_home_latest_news
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=eric+hunsader&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gws_rd=ssl
He is the founder of the firm Nanex. This cat is the real deal and one hell of a nice guy. No one in history has ever uncovered so much fraud on wall street (and the media) than he has. Harry Markopolos did well exposing Madoff et.al. and I would cut off my left nut (and right one too) to see Mr. Hunsader and Mr.Markopolos team up with Bill Black and anyone else they would welcome to address the issues at hand.
My hat goes out to DB for the education and allowing me to write a bit. This has been one of the most educational experiences of my life and a really big KUDO's to Cheyenne. I and hope everyone here stays connected and PLEASE follow NANEX on twitter. This is so huge….
john
I made an #HFT treasure map:
Embedded image permalink
Go here to see above plus lots more.
https://twitter.com/nanexllc?lang=en
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-16/hft-treasure-map-presenting-rigged-stock-markets-full-latency-abritrage-one-chart
We and others have made similar arguments regarding equities, some links below.
From MarketWatch:
Study by CFTC official questions legality of HFT practice
http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2015/02/commodity-hft-may-be-illegal-cornell.html
An official at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission has authored a study questioning the legality of a common practice by high-frequency trading firms.
The study, written by Greg Scopino, who works in the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight for the CFTC, argues that the activity of high-speed pinging — the action of entering small marketable orders to learn about larger hidden orders in dark pools — might be a violation of the Commodity Exchange Act.
The paper, written for the Connecticut Law Review, says that since many high-speed “pinging” orders involve sending out large numbers of orders that are mostly cancelled, the prices are what are called “non-bona fide,” which are prohibited by law.
See link to the study
“Therefore, one could argue that at least some of the trades in a high-speed pinging scheme are ‘false orders’ that are submitted solely to flush out other traders,” the study said.
The study also compared the practice to “spoofing,” which is the bidding or offering with the intent to cancel right before execution.
“Given the high cancellation rates of trading by HFT firms, that behavior is arguably a component of many high-speed trading strategies, all of which are presumably illegal,” the study said.
In addition, the article compared high-speed pinging to “banging the close,” where a trader buys or sells a large amount of orders contracts during the closing of a futures contract.
Pinging was also compared to wash trading, the practice of entering into or purporting to enter into transactions without incurring market risk or changing the trader’s market position but gives the appearance that a transaction was made.
Both practices are prohibited by law.
“Both wash trading and banging the close use trades to create the illusion that there is more activity in the market than there actually is, or to deceive others as to the true nature of the trading activity in the market,” the study said....MORE
On the stock market:
April 2014
(sorta) HFT: The SEC Says Quote Stuffing and Spoofing Is Illegal
February 2014
"High-Speed Trading Isn't About Efficiency—It's About Cheating"
The most egregious tactic is quote stuffing which is in direct violation of black letter law, both the Exchange act and 15 USC § 78i which reads, in part:
...(2)To effect, alone or with 1 or more other persons, a series of transactions in any security registered on a national securities exchange, any security not so registered, or in connection with any security-based swap or security-based swap agreement with respect to such security creating actual or apparent active trading in such security, or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.
Got it? The entry of orders for the purpose of other than actually transacting in the security at the given price -- that is, to induce others to trade, to raise or lower the price, to do anything other than to actually transact -- is illegal.
Period.... Section 9 of the Securities Act of 1934 makes it unlawful for any person to create a false and misleading appearance of trade, or to influence a price, or to induce the purchase or sale of securities by others....
Nanex just released this animation of how this works. Read what BATS is first. https://www.batstrading.com/about/
BATS Quote Update - who gets it first, and when, Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6hpAZUlCQ&feature=youtu.be
This is an update to
https://youtu.be/hnKfSFB-SoA
It incorporates a hypothetical ISO order sent by the Mahwah HFT to the NYSE, which changes NYSE's quote before the SIP delivers it. This would allow the sending HFT to establish the top of the queue at the new price level on NYSE.
From our analysis of several billion quotes with microsecond time-stamps from both the SIP and Direct Feeds, we found the NYSE quote will often react to changes in BATS quote earlier than possible. For example, the NYSE will often aggressively lock the BATS quote as if the system had knowledge of a new BATS quote well before getting it from the SIP.
One possibility is that an HFT is sending a Day ISO order to NYSE which tells the NYSE "It's OK if this quote locks another market, because I'm also routing ISO orders to those markets to clear their quotes.
What we found in the data: if the HFT at Mahwah were to send a Day ISO order to NYSE when they received the BATS quote update, it was always very close to the time when the NYSE would change and lock the older BATS price still in the SIP (and about to be updated).
If this is the scenario, then the HFT is really using ISO orders to change NYSE's quote, and sneak its way to the top of the queue at the new price level. NYSE has no way of knowing if the ISO is legit or not, and won't get a SIP update until the very end of the animation.
Note - the Mahwah HFT already knows the BATS quote has changed. They aren't sending an ISO order to NYSE to sweep markets, they are simply using the ISO order to change NYSE's quote!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9EjJoCNtoo&feature=youtu.be
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f9EjJoCNtoo&feature=youtu.be
Eric Scott Hunsader – @nanexllc
We can dissolve the SEC/CFTC now, since exchanges are immune and can favor any group they please
4:50 PM - 26 Aug 2015
50m50 minutes ago
Eric Scott Hunsader @nanexllc
US Stock Exchanges have legal immunity
As public companies, their shareholders will absolutely demand they take full advantage
51m51 minutes ago
Eric Scott Hunsader @nanexllc
Today is the day Capitalism and Rule of Law died on Wall Street
(it might have been long ago, but now it's official)
40m40 minutes ago
Eric Scott Hunsader @nanexllc
I'm not sure exchanges fully realize how much less valuable immunity is when it's widely known. People don't play rigged games
https://www.morningstar.com/news/market-watch/TDJNMW_20150826506/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-against-barclays-inspired-by-flash-boys.html
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit against Barclays PLC that was inspired by the best-selling book "Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt" by Michael Lewis.
The suit filed in the Southern District of New York by the city of Providence, R.I., and other investors cited the book and alleged that Barclays (BCS) (BCS) and the U.S. stock exchanges defrauded investors in its dark pool, a private trading venue, and gave high-frequency traders an unfair advantage over others.
Judge Jesse M. Furman said in his opinion that the plaintiffs failed to show their complaints were "legally sufficient." The plaintiffs may opt to amend their complaint and refile, the judge said.
"We are pleased with the court's thorough and well-reasoned decision dismissing all the allegations in the complaints concerning Barclays LX and concluding that the plaintiffs were unable to identify any materially false or misleading statements by Barclays," Barclays spokesman Marc Hazleton said in a statement.
Lawyers for the city of Providence said they were still discussing the judge's decision and hadn't yet decided whether to appeal. Frank Bottini, a lawyer for another plaintiff, Great Pacific Securities, said he was planning to amend the complaint and seek to have it moved to California where it was originally filed.
Representatives of NYSE Group, a unit of Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) , Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.(NDAQ) , and BATS Global Markets Inc. declined to comment. The exchanges have previously denied allegations that they were creating an uneven playing field for investors.
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According to the judge, the exchanges are SELF REGULATORY and have IMMUNITY. In other words the CFTC and SEC are useless. The markets have been proven by NANEX that they are rigged and now that doesn't matter. Get your money the fuck out now and spread the word.
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Here is some background on the lawsuit:
Pension Funds Joins Lawsuit on High Frequency Trading
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/pension-funds-join-lawsuit-on-high-frequency-trading/?_r=0
A group of pension funds has joined with the City of Providence, R.I., in a lawsuit that claims that major stock exchanges improperly favored high-frequency traders at the expense of other investors.
The pension funds, including one in Boston and another in Stockholm, have joined a lawsuit originally filed by Providence in April, according to a filing in the Federal District Court in Manhattan last week. They are taking aim at some of the biggest stock exchanges — including the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and BATS Global Markets — as well as the investment bank Barclays, which operates a private stock trading venue known as a dark pool.
Their legal action comes during a period of heightened scrutiny for high-frequency traders, which use computer algorithms to buy and sell shares in milliseconds. In recent months, Washington lawmakers have summoned financial executives to testify about high-frequency trading, the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up its scrutiny of the practice, and the New York State attorney general has sued Barclays over high-frequency traders in its dark pool.
The pension funds and Providence, which are seeking class-action status, claim the exchanges ran afoul of their legal duties by providing certain advantages to high-frequency traders, “diverting billions of dollars annually from buyers and sellers of securities and generating billions more in ill-gotten kickback payments.” They are seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
Spokesmen for the defendants, which also include the Chicago Stock Exchange, all declined to comment.
Stock exchanges offer a number of paid services used by high-frequency traders, including detailed data feeds, special types of orders and the ability to place computer servers in the exchanges’ data centers. The lawsuit argues that such practices hurt other investors, and it claims the exchanges have a “financial incentive to create an uneven playing field.”
These services have attracted the attention of regulators as well. The New York State attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, singled them out for criticism in March, while the chief of the S.E.C., Mary Jo White, said in June that exchanges should conduct a review of their order types and disclose more information about how they use data feeds.
In addition to Providence, the plaintiffs in the case are the Plumbers and Pipefitters National Pension Fund in Alexandria, Va.; the Employees’ Retirement System of the Government of the Virgin Islands; the State-Boston Retirement System; and Första AP-fonden, a pension fund in Stockholm.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported on the updated lawsuit.
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Dear Mary Jo White, Is this FUCKING FAIR?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f9EjJoCNtoo&feature=youtu.be
https://cryptome.org/2015/08/flash-boys-050.pdf
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/60-minutes-investigates-high-frequency-trading/
http://www.ibtimes.com/iex-group-inc-gains-sec-approval-launch-national-stock-exchange-2383673
http://iextrading.com
My congrats to IEX and Nanex et.al. for all of their hard work!!!!