"We're All Dr.Evil Now" | Zero Hedge

"We're All Dr.Evil Now" | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Ben Hunt via Salient Partners' Epsilon Theory blog,

DIY’s newest frontier is algorithmic trading. Spurred on by their own curiosity and coached by hobbyist groups and online courses, thousands of day-trading tinkerers are writing up their own trading software and turning it loose on the markets.

Interactive Brokers Group actively solicits at-home algorithmic traders with services to support their transactions. YouTube videos from traders and companies explaining the basics have tens of thousands of views. More than 170,000 people enrolled in a popular online course, “Computational Investing,” taught by Georgia Institute of Technology professor Tucker Balch. Only about 5% completed it.
– Wall Street Journal, "Algorithmic Trading: The Play at Home Version" August 9, 2015

London day trader Navinder Sarao has been formally indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury on charges of market manipulation that prosecutors say helped contribute to the 2010 "flash crash," according to a Sept. 2 court filing made public on Thursday.

The Justice Department first announced criminal charges against Sarao in April and is seeking to have him extradited to the United States to stand trial.

Sarao is accused of using an automated trading program to "spoof" markets by generating large sell orders that pushed down prices. He then canceled those trades and bought contracts at lower prices, prosecutors say.
– CNBC, "US Federal Grand Jury Indicts 'Flash Crash' Trader" September 3, 2015

Anxiety in the industry surged last week after Li Yifei, the prominent China chief of the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, disappeared and Bloomberg News reported that she had been taken into custody to assist a police inquiry into market volatility. Her employer, the London-based Man Group, did little to dispel fears, declining to comment on her whereabouts.

Ms. Li resurfaced on Sunday and denied that she had been detained, saying that she had been in “an industry meeting” and “meditating” at a Taoist retreat. But many in the finance sector are unconvinced.
– New York Times, "China's Response to Stock Plunge Rattles Traders" September 9, 2015

I’ve written several Epsilon Theory notes about modern market structure (“Season of the Glitch”, “Fear and Loathing on the Marketing Trail, 2014”, “The Adaptive Genius of Rigged Markets”, “Hollow Men, Hollow Markets, Hollow World”), all of which have been very well received. I’ve also written several Epsilon Theory notes about Big Data and non-human intelligences (“Troy Will Burn – the Big Deal about Big Data”, “First Known When Lost”, “Rise of the Machines”), all of which have generated a yawn. This divergence in reader reaction has puzzled me, because it seems so obvious to me that the issues are two sides of the same coin. So why can’t I communicate that?

It’s only over the last few days, after listening to old-school luminaries like Leon Cooperman and Dick Grasso rail against systematic investment strategies, index derivative hedging, and algorithmic market making as if they were the same thing (!) … it’s only after reading press stories that praise the US indictment of Navinder Sarao, the London trader who supposedly triggered the “Flash Crash” from his home computer, but condemn the Chinese detention of Man Group’s Li Yifei as if they were different things (!) … it’s only after seeing 500 commercials for “DIY trading platforms” on TV today as if this were a thing at all (!) … that I think I’ve finally figured this out.

Cont.....