Market Data Firm Spots the Tracks of Bizarre Robot Traders – (Atlantic – August 4, 2010)<\/a>
\nMysterious and possibly nefarious trading algorithms are operating every minute of every day in the nation’s stock exchanges. The trading bots aren’t doing anything that could be construed to help the market. Unknown entities for unknown reasons are sending thousands of orders a second through the electronic stock exchanges with no intent to actually trade. Often, the buy or sell prices that they are offering are so far from the market price that there’s no way they’d ever be part of a trade. The bots sketch out odd patterns with their orders, leaving patterns in the data that are largely invisible to market participants. In fact, it’s hard to figure out exactly what they’re up to or gauge their impact. Are they doing something illicit? If so, what? Or do the patterns emerge spontaneously, a kind of mechanical accident? If so, why? No matter what the answers to these questions turn out to be, we’re witnessing a market phenomenon that is not easily explained. And it’s really bizarre.<\/p>\n
\nA FINAL QUOTE…<\/p>\n
“…If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.”<\/i>\u00a0– Arthur C. Clarke<\/p>\n
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\njohnp@arlingtoninstitute.org<\/a><\/p>\n
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Edited by John L. Petersen
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