A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
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A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
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Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#2At the very end, Farnsworth buys from, not sells to, Bender. I think it's clear, but had to read it twice.
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#3Why apologize? Noone's robbing anyone here. If it's legal, it's legal.
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#4Why apologize? Noone's robbing anyone here. If it's legal, it's legal.
Are you suggesting that people should only apologize for things that are illegal?
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#5Why apologize? Noone's robbing anyone here. If it's legal, it's legal.
So it's not possible, in your opinion, for something to be both legal and unethical?
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#6Why apologize? Noone's robbing anyone here. If it's legal, it's legal.
You have just admitted to not even reading the first paragraph of the article, in which he explains his meaning of the word "apology."
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#7One point that is bothering me is this: how much of the existence of HFTs is an artifact of the rules of the exchange? In particular, the rule that the first bid gets priority in executing the trade. It strikes me that the entire existence of HFTs seems to be taking advantage of this failure of mechanism design.
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#8Why apologize? Noone's robbing anyone here. If it's legal, it's legal.
Legal and Ethical are two different things. Confounding both, in the eyes of people is Understanding.
It may be legal to something, but unethical. It may be ethical to do something, but illegal. There are many examples of both. The reason for this article is apparently to spread understanding amongst people who think it's unethical to do HFT, but may not understand what HFT does and how it works. By writing this article, he is hoping to convince - via understanding - people that HFT is also ethical.
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#9Why apologize? Noone's robbing anyone here. If it's legal, it's legal.
The first sentence in the article:
"About the title
Many people were misled by it, and this wasn’t my intention. I was merely alluding to the book by Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, which spent time explaining and justifying his life as a mathematician. (Hardy, in turn, was alluding to the Apology of Socrates. It’s an apology in the classical sense (an intellectual justification), not an expression of remorse. My mistake - as a math geek, it’s easy for me to forget that most people have never heard of Hardy."
"Apology" doesn't necessarily imply remorse, just explication.
Re: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2
#10One point that is bothering me is this: how much of the existence of HFTs is an artifact of the rules of the exchange? In particular, the rule that the first bid gets priority in executing the trade. It strikes me that the entire existence of HFTs seems to be taking advantage of this failure of mechanism design.
There was an extensive discussion on this point in the previous HN thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3855610
The short summary is no one can come up with something better than price-time priority for matching orders.