Re: <nettime> High-tech trading, 2011 edition

[David Mandl <dmandl@panix.com>]

I think the only way to make money from these particular trading programs is to "take the other side of the trade." The idea that there's money to be made from monitoring news sites or scanning Twitter for emoticons (!) is too crazy to entertain. Why not just trade off the discussions on stock chat boards (the source of pretty much the worst investing information in the world)?

I've got to think these people are trying to take advantage of the saps who think these trading systems must be the absolute cutting edge because they "monitor Twitter in real-time," or some such ridiculousness. But maybe I'm being too generous--some of these traders and programmers might actually believe this stuff.

   --Dave.

On Dec 24, 2010, at 1:04 PM, Carl Guderian wrote:

> The hits keep on coming. You just know one of these days, someone's going
> to find a way to root and loot all these high-speed trading programs, or
> else write a Stuxnet-type virus to crash them for a laugh. The people 
> running them barely understand them as it is. It'll be the IT guy who 
> learns he didn't get a bonus that some idiot trader did and/or is getting 
> the ax.

 <...>

--
Dave Mandl
dmandl@panix.com
davem@wfmu.org
Web: http://www.wfmu.org/~davem
Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmandl


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