Market Data Firm Spots the Tracks of Bizarre Robot Traders

[Wombaticus Rex]

Luther, if it's at all helpful, 99% of what gets written about "the markets" is bullshit ad copy for a fixed game that runs on suckers. It really is exactly as bad as you think -- if not far worserer.

[justdrew]

Out of every single last thing discussed here, markets are the one that I have absolutely no ability to follow. I have a meager, newborn 403(B) and live pretty much paycheck to paycheck.

Can someone provide some links that might explain market functionality in a really elementary way that might lead an intuitive soul like myself to understanding a little of this thread?

I'm far from deeply knowledgeable too but after, "buy low, sell high" these links are reasonable places to start finding out about the atomic elements of how this stock thing works.

http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2008/10/introduction-to-trading-markets-auction.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_maker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock

[Luther Blissett]

Thanks guys. I've bookmarked those links. I'm actually still making my way through the comments on that Zero Hedge blog entry on the BIS gold swap and can somewhat follow that. But anyway - does anyone have any news on it?

[barracuda]

Interesting theory on the genesis of these crop circles from Denninger and Nanex. The gist of it is that you can pay for a premium quote service for bid orders which circumvents the Consolidated Quotation System that the plebes track orders through. And with enough throughput of automated bid orders, at the level of 20,000 bids per second, the CQS actually lags, permitting premium buyers to see prices unavailable on the CQS, which can be exploited for profit. So it's possible to stuff the pipe to capacity, then profit from the manufactured latency, resulting in these extreme spikes occurring within tiny fractions of a second as reported on Cryptogon.

[justdrew]

so the DOW closed well below 10,000 today, and it isn't even Friday! Looks like maybe they halted trading a bit early?

[ninakat]

so the DOW closed well below 10,000 today, and it isn't even Friday! Looks like maybe they halted trading a bit early?

Hmmmm... and then there's this (not that I give this buffoon any credit for anything):

Expect ‘Mass Panic’ in Markets Friday?
Published: Thursday, 26 Aug 2010 | 3:18 PM ET

By: Tom Brennan
Web Editor, Mad Money

If Wall Street’s reaction to Friday’s gross domestic product report is anything like its reaction to other economic data points, Cramer said during Thursday’s Stop Trading!, expect a sell-off of some kind at the open.

“I’m predicting mass panic tomorrow morning,” he said, mocking skittish investors, “market looking down 15 ticks.”

The reason for this somewhat tongue-in-cheek forecast was the Street’s continued overreaction to any perceived bad news.

. . .