High-Frequency Trading: A Sociologist’s Take

For Donald MacKenzie, individuals’ interactions with machines, mathematics and technology in competitive settings – and the risks that may ensue – are subjects of great fascination, whether in financial markets, bitcoin mining or nuclear weaponry.

MacKenzie comes at it not as a technologist, mathematician or engineer, but rather as a social scientist.

Professor Donald MacKenzie weighs the risks of models, algorithms, market concentration and jitter in this article by Katherine Heires and published on the GARP website. Read it HERE.

The year in banking: top 10 trends in 2015

From GT News –

“What were the major banking trends and themes in 2015? Here’s a top 10 selection of what emerged as the main developments over the past 12 months.”

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Goldman Sachs programmer has HFT code theft conviction overturned

From Finextra –

“Former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov has had a conviction for stealing the bank's propriety HFT code thrown out for the second time.

State judge Justice Daniel Conviser overturned a jury verdict from May that found Aleynikov guilty of breaking a law called the "unlawful use of secret scientific material".

In a 72-page opinion, Conviser wrote that the programmer "acted wrongly" when he copied Goldman's HFT code when he left the firm in 2009 but that prosecutors "did not prove he committed this particular obscure crime".

This is the second time that Aleynikov has had a conviction overturned. He was first found guilty by a Manhattan jury in December 2010 of federal criminal charges relating to the theft of trade secrets and interstate transportation of stolen property. However, after serving little more than a year of his 97 month sentence, a US Appeals Court overturned the conviction.”

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Flash Crash fades, but 3 threats remain

From USA Today Money –

“Where were you five years ago, today (May6, 2010)? If you had your head in your hands for 36 painful minutes, you were probably investing in the stock market.

It’s been five years since the Flash Crash rocked U.S. markets, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down roughly 1,000 points, or 9%, in just minutes. Despite years of hand-wringing and even a court hearing with a trader accused of being involved, little has been determined about what caused this infamous short-circuiting of the markets.”

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