Hi Frank - As it happens, I didn't read the comments. Nor was there any involvement, however remote, with the linked story.
WRT the financial sector over the last few years, there are many issues I regard as essentially "over": regulatory change, direction, societal winners and losers, the network effect with issues of risk and uncertainty, questions of moral and criminal conduct, indeed, the underlying rationalizations for the whole furball.
It's over. What we've got is what we'll have until the next crisis - or as anticipated, series of crises. The direction that humanity will take until capitalism collides with energy and climate is assured; the HFT story is a microcosmic example.
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We watch the HFT story devolve in much the same way as we once watched the nuclear arms race, or as history tells us, of battleships at the turn of the previous century. Note the parallels; critics voiced the humanistic issues: the morality of escalating expenditure, preemption and destruction. Supporters stated technological spinoffs, "need" and ideological imperatives.
The bolded comment (by a large market participant, not Joe Six-Pack, not some blogger) indicates perceived corruption of a fair market by HFT. The article itself denotes an "antimissile missile", if you will. Score one for fairness. But the HFT arms race will continue, and those with a financial interest in continuation will argue that HFT is good for us.
What they mean is that it's good for them.
Jim |
