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Tesla's April Fool's Joke Spoofs Market Algorithms
Okian Warrior writes Yesterday, Tesla's twitter feed and blog announced the new "W" Model. Meaning "Watch" (as in "wristwatch"), the announcement Included a photo of a watch spouting a cumbersome "Big Ben" glued to the face and including this text: "This incredible new device from Tesla doesn't just tell the time, it also tells the date. What's more, it is infinitely adjustable, able to tell the time no matter where you are on Earth. Japan, Timbuktu, California, anywhere! This will change your life. Reality as you know it will never be the same." Clearly, this was an April fool's joke as anyone who reads more than just the headline would immediately guess. The problem is that Bloomberg's fast response team did not. The algos, on massive volume, spiked TSLA stock higher by nearly 1%.
A 1% move on an individual stock is not that much, is this really a big problem?
Enigma
So the stock market is being actively manipulated by idiots?
As usual, these people are just parasites on the financial system looking to skim off money before everyone else has a chance.
High frequency trading is essentially skimming off the top for yourself without having done ANYTHING other than having a faster connection.
I hope these clowns bankrupt themselves one day with their stupidity.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
[of comment subject] You don't get how Wall Street works
Wall Street doesn't "work". It never has. There is no "work" being done by anyone involved solely with Wall Street activities. None of that activity produces actual goods or services. A laundromat contributes more to the real USA economy than all the mutual funds ever have, or ever will.
The main problem with capitalism today is that it is a religion that has been completely subverted by heretical money changers from the original visions of John Locke and others.
The most exciting and beneficial economic activity of the last ten years is the development and distribution of free open source software, which is putting the tools of production into the hands of everyone who is living above abject poverty. The impact is huge. Yet this is a gift economy that does not fit the capitlalistic model and has nothing to do with "finance".
The age of finance is drawing to a close, and good riddance. It belongs in the history books, in a chapter after the age of slavery, along side the chapters on the age of colonial oppression and the age of consumerism. (The new ages of ecological balance and anonymous gift exchange ("freeware") are the first emerging ages of the anthropocene epoch).
Will
Believing that stocks are supposed to mirror some sort of intrinsic underlying value is just wrong-headed. Nothing has intrinsic value. The price of a stock certificate, like the price of a diamond, is based on supply & demand.
And like a diamond, people have varying reasons to own it, which might not have anything to do with any practical function of the thing. Which isn't to say that practical applications don't effect the price.
Supply & demand--it's a seemingly simple concept but in reality the vast majority of people just don't _get_ the concept, including many economists. People just can't wrap their heads around the notion that an object might not have any inherent purpose or inherent value separate from how it's treated in the market.
It's kind like the concept of a soul. Even most atheists fall into the trap of believing that a soul exists. I think it's a limitation of our brains. We presume there's some kind of agency or other fundamental character of things independent from the interactions it has with the environment.