08.14
It’s been known for quite a while that Goldman Sachs is the undisputed king of so-called “high frequency trading algorithms”. These are basically software monitoring programs that track the market second by second and make quick trades in response to other people’s buy and sell orders so that they are profiting a few cents per trade in rapid succession each time. I don’t fully understand it, but it evidently is a sort of stock market black magic that Goldman has mastered. Now we find out that this software is so powerful it could allow a single person to “manipulate markets” if it fell into the wrong hands. Jeez. Anybody else reaching for the tin foil? I need a thicker hat.
Here’s a very good article on HFT and how much of a scam it is: HFT: The High Frequency Trading Scam.
