High Frequency Trading - William Arnuk

Documentary for an 8th Grade Civics project.

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Entertainment

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• William
• Arnuk

[eyebluebayou]

HFT is the beginning stages of an ongoing evolution that will eventually lead to the complete governance of the global financial sector. Good job on your video...very well done!

[tvdownloads]

Great project man!

[rhysfawr4]

Excellent piece, nice and concise but sufficiently detailed and well written, seamless segues... wait a min. Grade 8?! You get an effing 'A+'.

Excellent, now there is a whole class of kids that know which way the wind blows.

All who say HFT adds 'Liquidity': where was that liquidity May 6? Exactly.

HFT algo's just skim until they can't anymore, then 'timberrrrrrrrrrrrrr!'

[robbbie23]

good job. I never thought about such things at your age, and even though I think perhaps you should broaden your scope a little bit about this particular issue, the very fact that you're interested in such things at 16 bodes well for your future. Everything you're saying is correct but there is more then one way to look at this issue. But nice video. It is obvious you like to find out things for yourself and ask questions, and that will take you far in this world.

[robbbie23]

fellow algo traders. Not many people use VWAP/TWAP orders, and those are the types that suffered the most. Human daytraders like myself stayed out for the most part, and many even made significant profits from the bounceback. And average investors (people who aren't watching the tick by tick movements of the Dow) would have been even less affected. By the time they heard about it, the damage was recovered. But, as mentioned to the maker of the video...... (cont)

[robbbie23]

@beastlycubist4 Well put. The liquidity that HFT provides seems like it's not sucha big deal.....unless you're a trader and are familar with trading WITHOUT liquidity. I am a career daytrader, and I the benefits of HFT far outweigh the negatives. There certainly are shortcomings - the system is not perfect - but much like, say, democracy, which also has shortcoming, we are better of with it then without it. As you say, the people who got turly killed on the May flashcrash were (Cont)

[beastlycubist4]

[continued...] I really encourage to look past what's presented in financial media. Also, to question certain people's motives in promoting/demonizing something (they usually have something to gain). Of course, don't take what I have to say as fact really look into the subject and come up with your own conclusion.

Keep up the good work, this is certainly a subject most adults wouldn't even consider looking into so you're far ahead of the curve.

[beastlycubist4]

[continued...] because at the end of the day high-frequency traders are saturating their market and they're losing money because of it. I'll admit that not everyone has the skills or can afford the technology required to implement a profitable HFT strategy. However, when is anything ever fair in finance - can joe retail investor afford to hire a research staff? A well funded bank/fund could, saying they can't hire a research staff would be more unfair in itself. [continued..] 

[beastlycubist4]

[continued...] One of the reasons why we saw such a quick recovery in the "flash crash" was because of that. In regards to predatory trading, it seems unfair but at the end of the day - this is finance. I don't believe most retail investors are executing algo (VWAP/TWAP) orders (these are the types of orders that are being picked off) to begin with either, so at the end of the day HFT benefits the small guy. Firms like Themis are ultimately against it because at the end of the day [continued..]

[beastlycubist4]

While I certainly applaud your intellectual interest in the topic (I certainly wasn't thinking about such things at your age). I think you should have been a bit more objective with this.

Here's my point of view, HFT is just the natural evolution of trading. Liquidity is the real thing HFT brings to the table, which in the end benefits MOST investors. We're talking about tighter bid-ask spreads, faster recovery (extension of deeper order books). [continued..]