It is the beginning…
As the Labor Day weekend has passed, the summer is over and everyone is back to work, the action on Wall Street is in full swing. With the beginning of the fourth quarter just a couple of weeks away the thought that seems to be on everyone’s mind how strong is the economy? People are concerned about the stock market, they are concerned about the Fed raising rates and they are concerned about unemployment. It is right to be concerned. There is a lot of uncertainty out there right. My simple, unscientific observation is that the overall the economy it is quite weak and fragile. Everyone is sort of scared, […]
HFT problems may be top of mind but they’re not a new story
Over the last week the news was filled with stories of the role that high-frequency trading is playing in the markets. The conversation began with a “60 Minutes” piece on the subject last Sunday and continued from there. Once again the investing public has been whipped into a frenzy by the press bombarding them with stories about the markets being rigged and how the little guy is taken advantage of by the big guy. The HFT story is not new — nor are complaints about how these managers manipulate the markets — but now that Michael Lewis’s publisher is trying to sell books, it seems to have taken center stage. […]