Former Goldman Programmer's Conviction Overturned

i_want_you_to_throw_ writes "The legal woes will soon be over for Sergey Aleynikov, a former Goldman Sachs Group computer programmer who had been convicted of stealing part of the Wall Street bank's high-frequency trading code. A federal appeals court overturned his conviction and recommended acquittal. We previously discussed this story when he was sentenced to 97 months in prison. It will be interesting to see their reasoning (an opinion is to be released) as well as what this may mean for other programmers developing high frequency trading code."

Comments

In essence

[Anonymous Coward]

He took a copy of the code of an internal tool, not something that they sell to customers. Would you really consider it evil to save a copy of your log viewer, for example? The law was intended to protect sold products.

Re:In essence

[maroberts]

If you produce a product as part of work for hire and then steal that code and sell it on to a third party, it's still a form of theft.

It was however, perfectly legitimate for him to walk out with the knowledge of how stuff worked in his head and sell his expertise; I'm surprised he didn't do so. Once you know how something is done, you have solved the hard part and can spout a new set of code out of your head with little difficulty. Often producing a product the second time means you can do things better and faster anyway.

There's a lot of blurring between personal and work computers nowadays, which does mean you may have a copy of stuff you have developed on your home PC, and that can make things awkward. But if you do mean to sell something you've worked on to another party, you'd damn well better make sure that right is in your contract.

90% reduction

[alexander_686]

Unless you count a 90% reduction in trading costs as “nothing”.

Back in the day Market Makers would take $.125 to $.25 for every share traded. And woe to you if you were trying to sell more than 10k because then you would really be scalped. And then you had to add broker commissions on top of that.

I would rather pay high frequency traders $.01 a share and have a deep liquid market then go back to the good old days

Re:90% reduction

[Anonymous Coward]

Those fees are only a problem if you don't plan to hold on to your stock very long: after a few years or more of capital value change plus dividends, it's insignificant.

What's that you say? You like to buy and sell on a timeframe of weeks? Well, that's speculation not investment, and we need less of that. I'm happy to have that anti-speculation incentive built-in.

Re:90% reduction

[GlobalEcho]

For what it is worth, academic research indicates that HF trading significantly increases liquidity. The main people it hurt were the floor-based stockbrokers. There is a natural human tendency to detest the "middleman", who appears to generate nothing of value, in all economic endeavors. One notices it for market makes, car dealers store owners and so on. But middlemen actually do provide a valuable service to society. In Nature's Metropolis by William Cronon there is a fascinating study of the mutual resentment of the wood wholesalers, hardware store owners, and the public in the 1800s, even as everyone was getting much richer and healthier.

Re:90% reduction

[mrops]

That is the problem with the entire stock trading mentality. Stocks are viewed as commodity that makes the investor rich, no one views them as investing a company that will succeed with the investor's money.

Re:90% reduction

[AuMatar]

Because you aren't. If you were investing in a company, you'd be giving them capital to use for purchasing/hiring/research. Unless you're buying in an IPO or secondary, you're not giving the company any money at all. So it's not investing, it's legalized gambling where you wager on companies, not invest in them

Re:90% reduction

[maple_shaft]

But as was already said, this is speculative trading and NOT an investment. If you are a small time investor and are trying to engage in speculative trading then you are just asking to be bilked of your money. You don't overhear the chatter on the trading floor. You don't see breaking news happening before it goes public. The day traders and hedge funds will eat your lunch. You might as well be playing blackjack at the casino.

If you are a small time investor you are much better off studying earnings reports and making long term investment choices in blue chip stocks that pay dividends than trying to play the big boy games.

Re:90% reduction

[pclminion]

So if a company has a good long-term outlook and I buy in, and the stock does well for a period of time, then six months later the CEO dies in a car accident and is replaced by somebody who immediately starts running the company into the ground, I shouldn't be able to exit my position and take what little gains I can before they become losses? You want me to just hold on and get fucked because the situation changed dramatically? Am I supposed to read the future? It's one thing to speculate, it's another thing to be in for a long haul and decide (rationally!) to abort when things take a turn for the worse.

Re:Shouldn't be legal to use in the first place.

[maroberts]

If you want to finance your retirement or your childs education, you don't need to sell shares every 5 seconds, so liquidity means little in this regard. It would not be the end of the world having to wait a week or two for money for such purposes.