You're an idiot. Hft companies don't hack into the communication channels between buyer and seller. They submit orders to the exchange just like anyone else. They just do a better job.
If you don't want to pay the spread, then join the bid or ask.
I've talked to many exchanges. None of those have any HFT division. In fact, supporting the high messaging load is very expensive. Yet they are happy to do so. And there is good reason.
They don't have to. Investors can trade with anyone they like. They can even buy direct from original issues if they like. Of course, mostly people buy from HFT, because they have the best prices...
Hardly drastic?? It's the cause for massive price plummets in the past: traders would panic and try to sell before they lost everything. Without a market maker providing the liquidity the trader accepts lower prices, further reducing prices and further reducing liquidity. Also, with the 1c prices that market makers provide you can only be at most 1c away from the current value at the time of the trade. With the 10c or 20c spreads of the past you were paying the market maker, on average 10 to 20 times as much! But HFT must be evil, because you say so.
Some practices can increase volatility, and I'd agree those are bad. But most HFT strategies make money off of volatility, which guarantees it reduces volatility. It uses up its fuel, so to speak.
TRADING is a zero sum game. You want to get rid of that? The fact is that HFT market makers keep the markets at 1c spreads almost all the time. Before HFT, the market makers kept the spreads ten or twenty times as high.
If HFT is gouging how can I buy a stock for only one penny more than I can sell it at almost any time (for liquid stocks)?? And why was the difference over 20 times as much before HFT? The market maker is charging 1c more than he is willing to sell at. So at most he can make a penny on each stock. That's the least possible (excepting exotic orders). Yeah, that's gouging. You're SO smart.
HFT market making is responsible for the penny spreads you have today. Go back before HFT and you find 20 times the spreads. That's a cost to trading. The HFT company makes a much smaller amount on each trade, but as a result, trading is cheaper, hence more trading occurs. Yes HFT makes money from it. Why shouldn't they? They provide a service at a great risk. You try placing a bunch of bids and asks at 10 price levels on each side of the book for SPY and see how you fare. Making money at market making is very hard, but losing it is trivial. Take your ignorance elsewhere.
HFT algos are mostly well understood. It's execution which is hard... there is so much competition - which is exactly as it should be. HFT orders are just like anybody else's orders: they show up in market data and the trades are published... it's all public information. Anyone could start doing hft, given a reasonably small fund to start with, excepting felons.
Most shows aimed at kids are horrible - even for kids. "Phineas and Ferb" and "The Last Airbender" are notable exceptions.
As for parents buying adult games for their kids, I don't think anyone should have any say except the parents. Having the game labelled with the content is enough. If parents are too stupid or lazy to be well informed, then their kids will have more trouble than just seeing inappropriate content in video games.
Doesn't it bother you that many people in a social group coming to the same belief in something clearly false can and does occur spontaneously? The cargo cults, for example?
I think what bothers me most of all is how highly regarded relgion and religious texts and leaders are held. You can't criticise them without blacklash - usually very strong backlash.
Slashdot is one of the very few places I feel comfortable talking about such things. And the discussions can get very interesting.
That was a very long post for a very simple argument.
It really falls into a few categories. Some things are simply unlikely given our day to day experiences. Why should we believe something that has evidence against it but none for it, even if many others do believe? Other things cannot be determined either way, and have no effect whether true or false. Debating such is pointless. A god that "kicks off" the universe but plays no further role falls into this category. Yet other things are claimed by some religions but denied by others. Since they can't all be true and there isn't any evidence, why would you believe by default? It seems far more reasonable to be critical and skeptical by default. Believing something simply because some others also believe it is ridiculous. Especially when those claiming it disagree on details, and disagree with the majority. Some beliefs are simply dangerous. Without evidence they should not be held.
It seems to me ridiculous to have to defend the default position of skepticism in the event of lack of evidence. You don't believe all the claims of every religion, do you? Are you really only claiming that one should only accept *your* religion without evidence?
Why should I believe any claim without evidence? I claim there exist invisible pink unicorns. I bet you will never believe that.
With science I have the ability to test many of the theories. Those that are outside my reach are at least documented and I have reason to believe the evidence existed. I also have reason to believe that others have recreated the experiments or done their own studies. They attempt to use proven methodology. (Some sciences are more light on evidence, so I trust those less).
But with religion, there is no expectation that any of it was based on evidence. Quite the opposite: they encourage faith against any opposing evidence. Many people believing there is truth in it doesn't help: they will all have different explanations of why it's true, why it matters, why some pieces should be disregarded and others held gospel. Worse of all, religious people see the flaws in OTHER religions. They can't all be true. Should we be democratic and simply assume the religion with the most adherents must be true? Why should anyone trust their parents (once they reach adulthood)? Many things my parents taught me turned out to be false, either because they thought it was true, or because they were protecting me in some way. Science is successful at discerning truth simply because it is an attempt to avoid the many traps that humans are known to fall into. Religions don't avoid any of those traps - it embraces them.
The definition most certainly doesn't hinge on why you believe. Otherwise something true could be a delusion! That claim isn't even supported by the original DSM definition.
That example is arguable in both cases. Neither would be delusional if I were defining it. What if someone trusted (your parent, maybe) told you that his car turns into a dog when no one is looking and roams the neighbourhood stealing sausages, which it then turns into gasoline, and you believe it? You can't seroiusly claim you want the definition of delusional to exclude that?
How can one belief be a delusion for one person but not for another? Any definition of delusion that depends on the subject (i.e. WHO is doing the believing) is marred, in my opinion.
You're saying someone buys them at the asking rate and sells them at a higher price? I don't see anything wrong with that. Are you saying it's bad simply because it's an algo?
Slashdot Mirror
You're an idiot.
Hft companies don't hack into the communication channels between buyer and seller. They submit orders to the exchange just like anyone else. They just do a better job.
If you don't want to pay the spread, then join the bid or ask.
I've talked to many exchanges. None of those have any HFT division.
In fact, supporting the high messaging load is very expensive.
Yet they are happy to do so. And there is good reason.
They don't have to. Investors can trade with anyone they like. They can even buy direct from original issues if they like.
Of course, mostly people buy from HFT, because they have the best prices...
Hardly drastic?? It's the cause for massive price plummets in the past: traders would panic and try to sell before they lost everything. Without a market maker providing the liquidity the trader accepts lower prices, further reducing prices and further reducing liquidity.
Also, with the 1c prices that market makers provide you can only be at most 1c away from the current value at the time of the trade. With the 10c or 20c spreads of the past you were paying the market maker, on average 10 to 20 times as much!
But HFT must be evil, because you say so.
Some practices can increase volatility, and I'd agree those are bad.
But most HFT strategies make money off of volatility, which guarantees it reduces volatility. It uses up its fuel, so to speak.
TRADING is a zero sum game. You want to get rid of that?
The fact is that HFT market makers keep the markets at 1c spreads almost all the time. Before HFT, the market makers kept the spreads ten or twenty times as high.
If HFT is gouging how can I buy a stock for only one penny more than I can sell it at almost any time (for liquid stocks)??
And why was the difference over 20 times as much before HFT?
The market maker is charging 1c more than he is willing to sell at. So at most he can make a penny on each stock. That's the least possible (excepting exotic orders).
Yeah, that's gouging. You're SO smart.
HFT market making is responsible for the penny spreads you have today. Go back before HFT and you find 20 times the spreads. That's a cost to trading.
The HFT company makes a much smaller amount on each trade, but as a result, trading is cheaper, hence more trading occurs.
Yes HFT makes money from it. Why shouldn't they? They provide a service at a great risk. You try placing a bunch of bids and asks at 10 price levels on each side of the book for SPY and see how you fare.
Making money at market making is very hard, but losing it is trivial.
Take your ignorance elsewhere.
HFT algos are mostly well understood.
It's execution which is hard... there is so much competition - which is exactly as it should be.
HFT orders are just like anybody else's orders: they show up in market data and the trades are published... it's all public information.
Anyone could start doing hft, given a reasonably small fund to start with, excepting felons.
Trading on exchanges (HFTs bread and butter) is highly regulated.
Most shows aimed at kids are horrible - even for kids.
"Phineas and Ferb" and "The Last Airbender" are notable exceptions.
As for parents buying adult games for their kids, I don't think anyone should have any say except the parents. Having the game labelled with the content is enough.
If parents are too stupid or lazy to be well informed, then their kids will have more trouble than just seeing inappropriate content in video games.
I don't believe there is even a useful definition of soul that would lead to testable hypotheses.
In fact, no country would actually act on such an "act of war" and few would even claim it was such.
Doesn't it bother you that many people in a social group coming to the same belief in something clearly false can and does occur spontaneously?
The cargo cults, for example?
I think what bothers me most of all is how highly regarded relgion and religious texts and leaders are held. You can't criticise them without blacklash - usually very strong backlash.
Slashdot is one of the very few places I feel comfortable talking about such things. And the discussions can get very interesting.
That was a very long post for a very simple argument.
It really falls into a few categories.
Some things are simply unlikely given our day to day experiences. Why should we believe something that has evidence against it but none for it, even if many others do believe?
Other things cannot be determined either way, and have no effect whether true or false. Debating such is pointless. A god that "kicks off" the universe but plays no further role falls into this category.
Yet other things are claimed by some religions but denied by others. Since they can't all be true and there isn't any evidence, why would you believe by default? It seems far more reasonable to be critical and skeptical by default.
Believing something simply because some others also believe it is ridiculous. Especially when those claiming it disagree on details, and disagree with the majority.
Some beliefs are simply dangerous. Without evidence they should not be held.
It seems to me ridiculous to have to defend the default position of skepticism in the event of lack of evidence.
You don't believe all the claims of every religion, do you? Are you really only claiming that one should only accept *your* religion without evidence?
Why should I believe any claim without evidence? I claim there exist invisible pink unicorns. I bet you will never believe that.
Supposing those people believe it but the majority don't?
And more importantly, there is no evidence in favor?
I don't think so.
With science I have the ability to test many of the theories. Those that are outside my reach are at least documented and I have reason to believe the evidence existed. I also have reason to believe that others have recreated the experiments or done their own studies. They attempt to use proven methodology. (Some sciences are more light on evidence, so I trust those less).
But with religion, there is no expectation that any of it was based on evidence. Quite the opposite: they encourage faith against any opposing evidence. Many people believing there is truth in it doesn't help: they will all have different explanations of why it's true, why it matters, why some pieces should be disregarded and others held gospel.
Worse of all, religious people see the flaws in OTHER religions.
They can't all be true. Should we be democratic and simply assume the religion with the most adherents must be true?
Why should anyone trust their parents (once they reach adulthood)?
Many things my parents taught me turned out to be false, either because they thought it was true, or because they were protecting me in some way.
Science is successful at discerning truth simply because it is an attempt to avoid the many traps that humans are known to fall into. Religions don't avoid any of those traps - it embraces them.
The definition most certainly doesn't hinge on why you believe.
Otherwise something true could be a delusion!
That claim isn't even supported by the original DSM definition.
Even the DSM definition doesn't make a distinction between beliefs that are taught and those that appear spontaneously.
That example is arguable in both cases. Neither would be delusional if I were defining it.
What if someone trusted (your parent, maybe) told you that his car turns into a dog when no one is looking and roams the neighbourhood stealing sausages, which it then turns into gasoline, and you believe it?
You can't seroiusly claim you want the definition of delusional to exclude that?
How can one belief be a delusion for one person but not for another?
Any definition of delusion that depends on the subject (i.e. WHO is doing the believing) is marred, in my opinion.
You're saying someone buys them at the asking rate and sells them at a higher price? I don't see anything wrong with that.
Are you saying it's bad simply because it's an algo?
You could trade directly on the exchange too.
How is it unfair when you choose to go thru a broker?
They can see buys and sells on the book, as can everyong else.
They cannot jump ahead of them. That's completely made up bullshit.
I know of no pure HFT company that was bailed out. Some banks have HFT divisions, but that's incidental to their problems and eventual bailout.