Housing Doom Word 4 the Day: ingenuous
Reuters this morning.[1]
A Goldman spokesman just emailed me a quick statement, trying to downplay the firm’s involvement in HFT. The spokesman notes that “even using the broadest definition, high frequency shares trading accounted for less than 1% of Goldman Sachs’ total revenue in the first half of 2009.”
The spokesman goes on to note that Goldman’s proprietary trading HFT desk does not receive so-called “flash quotes” from stock exchanges. A flash quote is a controversial practice in which an exchange allows some hyperactive HFT desks to get a sneak peak of other customers orders.
Reuters this afternoon.[2]
Direct Edge, which aims to become a formal exchange operator later in 2009, has more than tripled its market share in the last year, thanks in large part to its flash program, called the Enhanced Liquidity Provider, or ELP.
…Direct Edge is owned by Goldman Sachs (GS.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), hedge fund Citadel, Knight Capital Group (NITE.O), and the International Securities Exchange, a unit of Deutsche Boerse’s (DB1Gn.DE) Eurex exchange.
I don’t think Matt is going to be a happy camper …
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[1]: "Goldman fires back on HFT", by Matthew Goldstein, Reuters, July 27, 2009.
[2]: "Direct Edge in crosshairs of ‘flash’ orders debate", by Jonathan Spicer, Reuters, July 27, 2009.
Watch this guy’s eyes when they bring up “colocation” (near end) …
If I wasn’t totally confused before, I certainly am now
… and Igor says he’s “clueless.”
It’ll be interesting if anything concrete comes of this at all. We’ve given away trillions of dollars with no accounting (no audits at all)… I can see people getting irritated about it but.. I’d like to see more regulation, enforcement, or at least the heads of GS up against the wall.
Sadly, I only expect ‘outrage’ and zero action at all… after all, we all work for Goldman, Sachs. Ask this Administration, or any other.