This Is What Wall Street's Terrifying Robot Invasion Looks Like

pigrabbitbear writes "Given the the endless mind-whirling acronyms, derivatives and structures of the financial markets, we're rarely served with a visualization that so elegantly illustrates the arrival of Wall Street's latest innovation. This is what High Frequency Trading — the official monicker of Wall Street's robot army — looks like, when specially programmed computers make massive bets at lightning speed. Created by Nanex, the GIF charts the rise of HFT trading volumes across all U.S. stock exchanges between 2007 and 2012. The initial murmur, the brewing storm, the final detonation: Not just unsettling, it's terrifying."

Comments

Re:Over dramatic much?

[tomhath]

Neither the tech bubble nor the housing bubble were caused by trading. They were caused by a President's attempts at social engineering.

Re:The AC on transparency - how precious

[superwiz]

but only insofar as it has made the entire market no more meaningful than a biased random number generator.

The fact that you don't have the ability to process information does not make it noise. If you have a study which shows that the entropy of the data increased, then it would be noise. As it stands, the prices are much more stable than they have been traditionally. Anyone who argues against HFT, is either a trade or an unwitting fool buying their crap.

Or more to the point, why do we even have a stock market?

So that companies could sell papers which give rights to vote on board membership. This is done in the hope that the board members, in fear for their jobs, will reward company owners with dividends. Anyone who buys stocks for any other reason has been duped or is hoping to dupe someone else. Before you start arguing how things "are in the real world", remind yourself that there is nothing real about exchanging money for paper unless that paper entitles you to something.... something other than just the right to sell that paper.

A transaction tax, and an end to intraday trading

Go back to hell, please. So that humans here on earth could continue to do that which enables life. Speculators role is to improve prices for willing parties exchanges goods and services. This is as true in stocks markets as it is in other markets. Idiots (or ass holes... not sure that I care which one you are) who argue against speculators argue for worsening prices for those who have goods to exchange or who wish to buy them to keep them. Cretins like you argue for waste. If you ever wonder what's wrong with the world, look in the mirror.

Re:Luddite

[clarkkent09]

How about a death penalty for anyone who holds a stock for less than 1 minute? That will do it too, congratulations you are a genius. Now you just have to explain who the fuck are you to decide what is the minimum amount of time that I have to hold my property before I am allowed to sell it?