Author | Michael Lewis |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | High-frequency trading |
Genre | non-fiction |
Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Publication date | March 31, 2014 |
Media type | Print, e-book. audiobook |
Pages | 288 pp. |
ISBN | 9780393244663 |
Preceded by | Boomerang |
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt is a book by the American writer Michael Lewis, [1] published by W. W. Norton & Company on March 31, 2014. The book is a non-fiction investigation into the phenomenon of high-frequency trading (HFT) in the US financial market, with the author interviewing and collecting the experiences of several individuals working on Wall Street. [2] Lewis concludes that HFT is used as a method to front run orders placed by investors. He goes further to suggest that broad technological changes and unethical trading practices have transformed the U.S. stock market from "the world's most public, most democratic, financial market" into a "rigged" market. [3]
Flash Boys maintains a primary focus on Brad Katsuyama and other central figures in the genesis and early days of IEX, the Investors' Exchange. Sergey Aleynikov, a former programmer for Goldman Sachs, serves as a secondary focus. [2] [3] [4] [5]
The introduction begins by naming Aleynikov and describing his arrest, along with the author's personal history on Wall Street, as the impetus for writing the book. The first chapter tells the story of a $300 million project from Spread Networks that was underway in mid-2009—the construction of an 827-mile (1,331 km) fiber-optic cable that cuts straight through mountains and rivers from Chicago to New Jersey—with the sole goal of reducing the transmission time for data from 17 to 13 milliseconds. [6] (The construction of the line was dramatized in the 2018 film The Hummingbird Project .)
Lewis goes on to describe the modern world of electronic trading and how it differs from the past—when trading was mostly performed in open outcry pits on physical trading floors—and how that change has impacted the market. [7] The speed of data is a major theme in the book; the faster a market participant's computer system can receive and act on data, the better their edge, and opportunity to profit, with even nanoseconds making a difference.
The central story details financial executive Brad Katsuyama's discovery of how access to this fiber-optic cable—as well as other technologies and special arrangements between HFT firms, exchanges, and large Wall Street banks—presents an opportunity for those insider institutions to profit at the expense of retail investors. To counter this, Katsuyama bands together a team that sets out to develop a new exchange, called IEX, designed specifically to prevent the unfair advantage enjoyed by HFT firms in the rest of the market. [8]
The final chapter is dedicated to the tribulation of Sergey Aleynikov, a former Goldman Sachs programmer twice prosecuted and twice acquitted for a single act of allegedly copying proprietary computer source code from his employer before joining a competing firm. [9] [10]
The epilogue details the author's bicycle journey to observe a string of microwave towers along the same stretch as Spread Networks' fiber-optic line. Lewis notes that the time to send a signal from Chicago to New York and back by microwave signal is about 4.5 milliseconds less than to send it by optical fiber but, when Spread Networks was laying its line, the conventional wisdom was that microwave transmission's data capacity was too limited and unreliable due to sensitivity to inclement weather. "But what if microwave technology improved?," the author wondered. The story ends as the author climbs up a mountain summit where one of the towers is stationed. He notes the tower showed signs of age, and could have been erected some time ago, for some other purpose, but the ancillary equipment including a generator, a concrete bunker, and repeaters that amplify financial signals, were all new.
The book has drawn criticism from some academics and industry experts, particularly on Lewis's views on HFT and other claimed factual inaccuracies in its description of trading strategies. [11] [12] [13] Other critics have praised Lewis's explanations of trading concepts and concurred in his criticisms of HFT. However, it is suggested that he neglected to pay attention to the larger issue of financial regulation, and excessively simplified the relationships between institutions in the financial market. [11] [14] [15] Some industry executives have dismissed the book as "closer to fiction". [16] Michael Lewis responded that those who said he "got it wrong" have a financial stake in the existing system. [17]
Manoj Narang, CEO of high-frequency trading firm Tradeworx, argued that Lewis' book is more "fiction than fact," claiming Lewis needs a primer in HFT. [16] A review by academic blogger Scott Locklin notes that Lewis had never spoken to, nor cited, a single high-frequency trader in the book. [18] Andrew Ross, writing in The Guardian , praised the book as an "effective exposé" but criticizes the author for arguing for the "heroism" of one group of financial insiders over another. [15] A month later, an article in The Economist noted that Lewis's book had generated "vigorous criticism", but that there may be some merits in its liquidity concerns. [13]
A Financial Post reviewer suggested that Lewis intentionally omitted details that point to market-stabilizing benefits of HFT: "Ironically, the Flash Crash itself was just glossed over. Could that be because the primary cause of that momentary blip lay in a confluence of regulatory mistakes and that it was many of the demonized HFTs who actually stood fast throughout and thereby ensured that the damage was a fraction of what it could have been had only the shell-shocked, traditional participants been left to respond?" [19]
An Oxford University Press handbook chapter authored by Andreas Fleckner calls Flash Boys a readable and mostly accurate introduction into such topics as dark pools, front-running, or kickbacks. However, the article suggests that on-site trading practices are too technical for laymen, market observers, or even regulators to fully understand. The author recommends providing incentives for self-regulation rather than SEC regulation. [12]
Felix Salmon, a financial columnist for Slate , asserted that the negative impact of high-frequency trading was restricted to "very rich" financial intermediaries, such as hedge funds. He noted that Lewis's story "needs victims" and that he portrayed several billionaire characters as victims "by pulling out every rhetorical device he can muster." In a crucial part of the book's narrative, a mutual fund manager named Rich Gates was "shocked" to find out he was paying 0.04% per trade due to his fund's dependence on a HFT front. The reviewer noted that Gates' own mutual fund charged an average of 2.41% for "expenses" to retail investors. [14]
In April 2014 the book reached No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, remaining on the top for three weeks, before being overtaken by Capital in the Twenty-First Century on May 18, 2014. [20]
Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg suggests that the FBI's investigation into high frequency trading, a day after the book's release, was directly motivated by the book's claims. [21] [22]
Lewis's phrase "The market is rigged" was often referenced. [23] The chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mary Jo White, stated in Congressional testimony on April 29, 2014, that U.S. financial markets "are not rigged" in response to a direct question on claims in Lewis's book. [24]
Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg disputed claims made in Lewis' book on May 2, 2014, stating in a CNBC interview that "the system isn’t rigged." [25] Arthur Levitt, adviser to high-frequency firm KCG Holdings and former SEC chairman, commented that variation exists within the group of high-speed traders that Lewis’ book describes, saying "What is missed in the book and in the general discussion of HFT is there are some HFT traders who respect the sanctity of the investor, and some who don’t." [26]
In April 2014, Sony Pictures acquired the film rights to the book. In June that year, it was announced that Flash Boys was to be adapted into a major motion picture, with acclaimed screenwriter/producer Aaron Sorkin penning the screenplay, and Scott Rudin and Eli Bush producing the film. The project would be a second collaboration between Sorkin and Rudin on a Lewis book adaptation, as the pair also filled the same respective roles on Moneyball . [27] [28] [29]
By September 2017, the project had not appeared to make any progress, seemingly stuck in development hell. Lewis commented his thoughts as to the stumbling block to a book-to-movie adaptation during a session at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. During a conversation with Washington Post journalist Joel Aschenbach, Lewis stated the trouble was Hollywood won't cast "a movie with an Asian lead." (The real-life main character in Flash Boys, IEX founder Brad Katsuyama, is of Asian heritage.) Lewis stated that private emails leaked in the 2014 Sony Pictures hack revealed studio apprehension with having an Asian lead actor, as well as with an Asian character portrayed by a White actor. [30]
In May 2018 it was announced that Sony Pictures' option for the screenplay had expired and film rights were acquired by Netflix. Ben Jacoby was named as the new screenwriter. [31] [32]
Algorithmic trading is a method of executing orders using automated pre-programmed trading instructions accounting for variables such as time, price, and volume. This type of trading attempts to leverage the speed and computational resources of computers relative to human traders. In the twenty-first century, algorithmic trading has been gaining traction with both retail and institutional traders. It is widely used by investment banks, pension funds, mutual funds, and hedge funds that may need to spread out the execution of a larger order or perform trades too fast for human traders to react to. A study in 2019 showed that around 92% of trading in the Forex market was performed by trading algorithms rather than humans.
Citadel LLC is an American multinational hedge fund and financial services company. Founded in 1990 by Kenneth C. Griffin, it has more than $50 billion in assets under management as of May 2022. The company has over 2,600 employees, with corporate headquarters in Miami, Florida, and offices throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. Founder, CEO and Co-CIO Kenneth C. Griffin owns approximately 85% of the firm.
Michael Monroe Lewis is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. He is known for his nonfiction work, particularly his coverage of financial crises and behavioral finance.
In finance, a dark pool is a private forum for trading securities, derivatives, and other financial instruments. Liquidity on these markets is called dark pool liquidity. The bulk of dark pool trades represent large trades by financial institutions that are offered away from public exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, so that such trades remain confidential and outside the purview of the general investing public. The fragmentation of electronic trading platforms has allowed dark pools to be created, and they are normally accessed through crossing networks or directly among market participants via private contractual arrangements. Generally, dark pools are not available to the public, but in some cases, they may be accessed indirectly by retail investors and traders via retail brokers.
Bats Global Markets is a global stock exchange operator based in Lenexa, Kansas, with additional offices in London, New York, Chicago, and Singapore. Bats was founded in June 2005, became operator of a licensed U.S. stock exchange in 2008 and opened its pan-European stock market in October 2008. As of February 2016, it operated four U.S. stock exchanges, two U.S. equity options exchanges, the pan-European stock market, and a global market for the trading of foreign exchange products. Bats is now owned by Cboe Global Markets.
High-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic financial trading characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools. While there is no single definition of HFT, among its key attributes are highly sophisticated algorithms, co-location, and very short-term investment horizons. HFT can be viewed as a primary form of algorithmic trading in finance. Specifically, it is the use of sophisticated technological tools and computer algorithms to rapidly trade securities. HFT uses proprietary trading strategies carried out by computers to move in and out of positions in seconds or fractions of a second.
Sergey Aleynikov is a former Goldman Sachs computer programmer. Between 2009 and 2016, he was prosecuted by NY Federal and State jurisdictions for the same conduct of allegedly copying proprietary computer source code from his employer, Goldman Sachs, before joining a competing firm. His first prosecution in federal court in New York ultimately resulted in acquittal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The outcome of his second prosecution and trial in New York state court was a split verdict dismissed by court, which acquitted him on all counts. One count in that order of dismissal was later overturned by New York Court of Appeals, which took a very broad interpretation of the statute, and on recommendation of prosecutors he was sentenced to time served without punishment. The same New York Court of Appeals denied his petition to appeal on double jeopardy grounds. His story inspired Michael Lewis's bestseller Flash Boys.
Zero Hedge is a far-right libertarian financial blog and news aggregator. Zero Hedge, per its motto, is bearish in its investment outlook and analysis, often deriving from its adherence to the Austrian School of economics and credit cycles. While often labeled as a financial permabear, Zero Hedge has also been described as a source of "cutting-edge news, rumors and gossip in the financial industry".
The May 6, 2010, flash crash, also known as the crash of 2:45 or simply the flash crash, was a United States trillion-dollar flash crash which started at 2:32 p.m. EDT and lasted for approximately 36 minutes.
Scott Patterson is an American financial journalist and bestselling author. He is a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal and author of Dark Pools: High-Speed Traders, A.I. Bandits, and the Threat to the Global Financial System and The New York Times bestselling bookThe Quants.
Virtu Financial is an American company that provides financial services, trading products and market making services. Virtu provides product suite including offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics and broker-neutral, multi-dealer platforms in workflow technology and two-sided quotations and trades in equities, commodities, currencies, options, fixed income, and other securities on over 230 exchanges, markets, and dark pools. Virtu uses proprietary technology to trade large volumes of securities. The company went public on the Nasdaq in 2015.
Nanex is a Chicago-based firm that offers streaming market data services, and real-time analysis and visualization tools. They offer data on all market transactions to their clients who are typically traders and other financial analysis firms. "The company can analyse millions of trades per second."
Investors Exchange (IEX) is a stock exchange in the United States. It was founded in 2012 in order to mitigate the effects of high-frequency trading. IEX was launched as a national securities exchange in September 2016. On October 24, 2017, it received regulatory approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list companies. IEX listed its first public company, Interactive Brokers, on October 5, 2018. The exchange said that companies would be able to list for free for the first five years, before a flat annual rate of $50,000. On September 23, 2019, it announced it was leaving its listing business.
Bradley Toshio Katsuyama is a Canadian financial services executive. He is the CEO and co-founder of the IEX, the Investors Exchange. He left RBC in 2012 to co-found IEX under the premise that it would be a fairer stock trading venue than other exchanges.
In finance, quote stuffing refers to a form of market manipulation employed by high-frequency traders (HFT) that involves quickly entering and withdrawing a large number of orders in an attempt to flood the market. This can create confusion in the market and trading opportunities for high-speed algorithmic traders. The term is relatively new to the financial market lexicon and was coined by Nanex in studies on HFT behavior during the 2010 Flash Crash.
United States v. Agrawal, 726 F.3d 235, was a case heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit involving theft of trade secrets and intellectual property. The court upheld the conviction of Samarth Agrawal, former quantitative analyst at Paris-based bank Société Générale S.A ("SocGen"), for stealing high-frequency trading code from SocGen and replicating proprietary software for New York-based hedge fund Tower Research Capital ("Tower").
Ronan Ryan is an Irish-American businessperson. He is the president of IEX, the Investor's Exchange, and an electronic trading expert. As a founding member of IEX, Ryan was a central character featured in Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt. Irish America magazine named Ryan to its 2014 and 2015 Wall Street 50 list.
Hudson River Trading (HRT) is a quantitative trading firm headquartered in New York City and founded in 2002. In 2014, it accounted for about 5% of all trading in the United States.
Spoofing is a disruptive algorithmic trading activity employed by traders to outpace other market participants and to manipulate markets. Spoofers feign interest in trading futures, stocks and other products in financial markets creating an illusion of the demand and supply of the traded asset. In an order driven market, spoofers post a relatively large number of limit orders on one side of the limit order book to make other market participants believe that there is pressure to sell or to buy the asset.
DRW Holdings, LLC, typically referred to as DRW, is a diversified trading firm innovating across traditional and emerging markets. The firm is based in Chicago. The firm was founded in 1992 by Don Wilson, an options trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and was named after his initials: DRW. The firm trades various financial instruments, including fixed income, options and derivatives, energy and agriculture, and cryptocurrency. DRW has offices in Amsterdam, Austin, Greenwich, Tel Aviv, Chicago, New York City, Houston, London, Montreal, and Singapore. DRW is one of the five largest trading firms in the world.
In his new book Flash Boys, author Michael Lewis looks at the extraordinary lengths high-frequency traders go to to beat the competition