Juggling Dynamite

AverageJoeOptions.com Author and Founder Todd Horwitz previews today’s markets.Here is a direct video link.

Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco CEO & co-CIO, discusses how Larry Summer’s withdrawal from the race for Fed chairman will likely impact the markets and the Fed’s tapering policy. Here is a direct video link.

Kevin Slavin argues that we’re living in a world designed for — and increasingly controlled by — algorithms. In this riveting talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. Slavin also warns that we are writing code we can’t understand with implications we can’t control.Here is a direct video link.

All of which has nothing to do with investing and all about an elite few being able to endlessly game public markets. At least in theory…until the machines malfunction. And they have been doing so increasingly for the past 4 years. Major disruptions in major markets are now a weekly event. So far if it is a big player like Goldman Sachs who loses money on a malfunction, they have been allowed to cancel the trades and correct their losses. For the rest of the world though losses can prove fatal. In a world where lightening speed meets lightening leverage, hard saved capital can vanish in less than a blink.