HFT skimming and front-running epidemic killing financial integrity

Why has High Frequency Trading (HFT) become so profitable? Because it cheats and steals cash off legitimate market participants. If long-standing security fraud laws were enforced, it would be declared illegal. But in lawless times, where crooks control enforcement appetite and buy off the should-be cops around them, the bandits get away with grand theft. Some day we will look at this time in amazement that it was allowed to continue unchecked for so long. What started in the west is now spreading like a virus through Asia.

High-frequency traders, which over the past decade have taken over many traditional banking roles in the U.S. and European capital markets, are expanding in Asia. American firms including DRW, Virtu Financial Inc. and Jump Trading LLC are hiring, while local outfits such as Grasshopper Pte and Eclipse Trading have plans to expand. Meanwhile, international banks such as Morgan Stanley, Barclays Plc and Macquarie Group Ltd. are cutting trading jobs in the region.

“Everyone who’s a somebody in HFT is hiring,” said Nicholas Wells, managing director at NewtonChase, a recruiting firm in Singapore. “The race for talent is hot as they expand in Asia where there are new markets and HFTs aren’t in as much of the spotlight as in the West.”  Here is a direct video link.

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