Currency Dark Pools: The Rise of the Machine Traders and the Rigging of the U.S. Stock Market

Really insightful

Livre faisant une description historique, un peu romancée du développement de la digitalisation des places boursières et de l'émergence de nouveaux marchés financiers. Intéressant de voir à quel point des idéologies démocratiques peuvent être détournées pour construire des intruments de rente et d'influence. Inquiétant de voir la complaisance de certaines autorités vis-à-vis de structures complètement opaques et anti-compétitives.

Muy buena, buena compra

Provide a Deep dive how trading system works and how hedge found exploited.Reading the book I appreciated a lot the contents but I guess that the storytelling is full of repetition and so it is not lean.If you are fresh to the subject I also suggest to start reading M.Lewis "FLASH BOYS" to get the high level overview of the market.

世界の株取引は、テレビでよく映っていように、普通の取引所（「ライトプール」）でディーラーによって行われているの信じていませんか？現在の株取引の多くの部分を担う高速取引所は、「ダークプール」といって、取引所と各メンバーの証券会社のサーバーだけが並んでいるただのうす暗い部屋なのですよ！　一人の天才システムエンジニアの「もっと公平で効率的な株式市場を作りたい」という意図が、どこにでもあるデルのＰＣによる並行処理システムによって、世界の株取引を席巻する電子処理高速取引所を作りあげるに至った。しかし、その行き着く先は、意外にも、荒野や海底を超えて延びる専用光回線や専用マイクロ波回線によるピコセカンドを争う特権的な超大型証券会社だけが利用できる専用取引所（いわゆる「高速取引所」）であった。それによって、昔の株屋やディーラーは駆逐され、極微の鞘取り合戦という、経済に何の貢献のしない株取引（株保有期間が数秒以下）が株式市場の主流となっているのである。しかも、この高速株取引に必要な費用が膨大であり、その費用の大部分は結局、一般の株取引をするものが払っているのである。　このような重要な本が和訳されていないのは、まことに残念である。「ダークプール」という書名も、わかりにくいですね。

"Dark Pools" by Scott Patterson is a must read for every investor and regulator. In it, the author makes a compelling case for the premise that the US stock market is "rigged" in favor of high frequency traders using powerful computers.Patterson, a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal, traces the emergence and growth of computerized trading. It's a scary story of how the global markets have been taken over by trading robots ("bots") using artificial intelligence (AI) systems to execute trades in milliseconds.Threaded throughout the book is the story of Josh Levine, a brilliant, idealistic computer nerd, whose goal was to wrest control of the market from the big exchanges that give giant institutions the advantage over the little guy. In pursuit of his goal, Levine created a computerized trading hub, known as "Island", which allowed small traders to trade stocks directly. Eventually, Island grew into a multi-billion-dollar global electronic stock market linked to investors through a vast network of fiber-optic cables.Levine's dream leads to serious unintended consequences - including the proliferation of secretive exchanges called dark pools and a new type of trading machines using sophisticated algorithms that can think and act on their own without human intervention. These are the machines that caused the freakish "Flash Crash" in May 2010 that revealed the true dangers of a computer-driven market.In addition to Josh Levine's Island, the book chronicles the rise of other prominent trading firms including Instinet, Archipelago, Datek, Getco, Tradebot Systems, the people behind them and the software systems that gave them an edge in their trading. Among these innovative software systems were:* "Watcher" which permitted users to simultaneously monitor literally hundreds of stocks or securities;* "Monster Key" which permitted Datek traders to jump to the top of the trading queue; and* "Tradebot" one of the first fully algorithmic trading programs.To show how far things had gotten out of control, Patterson includes an excerpt from a speech by Thomas Peterffy (one of the prime proponents of high speed trading) that stunned attendees at a meeting of the World Federation of Exchanges in October 2010.Peterffy's comments were both prescient and troubling: "It's not so much anymore that the public does not trust their brokers," he said. "They don't trust the markets, the exchanges, or the regulators either. Why should they, given our showing over the past few years? To the public the financial markets may increasingly seem like a casino - except that a casino is more transparent and easier to understand. The market structure and new products have evolved more quickly than our capacity to understand and control them. The result has been a series of crises over the past few years that have caused investors to lose confidence or to think that the whole system is a rigged game."In the book's conclusion, Patterson says that the market has to change: "It has been spinning out of control, plagued by costly glitches, manipulative activity, and plunging investor confidence. If nothing is done to fix it,' he says, "next time the devastation could be irreversible."Barry Francis