There has been a bum rush since the WSJ article on order queues, trading matching engines, data feeds, and what should be characterized as a blatant slanting of the schematics of a capital market. First, today Joe Saluzzi and Sal Arnuk of Themis Trading hit up Bloomberg (video below) and spoke with the intelligent and fantastic interviewers/anchors Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle at length about the intricacies of market micro-structure.  The discussion covered maker-taker models and the race to zero in an effort to capitalize on the exchange rebate offers.

Later in the day, CNBC decided to bring on Haim Bodek to discuss the predatory behavior of certain high-frequency trading strategies and players.  Haim admits he has tirelessly (for nearly 2 years) tried to bring to the public realm the need for regulatory action to level the playing field for the general investing public.  He has since been vindicated as NYSE was recently sued for the pathetic sum of $5 million.

Haim calls out queue jumping, where a sophisticated trader can get ahead of other trades (institutional traders) resting on the order book during a price move.  He called this a

“corruption of price/time priority rules“

and that

“queue jumping does happen“.

Regarding the typical soap box claims by HFT of liquidity, tight spreads, etc he says he would believe the argument if such characteristics were possible without the advantage (read: manipulation) that certain HFT have.  We here at Floating Path hope you watch both of these videos and learn everything you can so you may join the debate

Haim Bodek on CNBC:

Themis Trading on Bloomberg

 

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