Courtesy of Pam Martens.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Testifying on High Frequency Trading Before the House Appropriations Committee on April 4, 2014
Every time a Wall Street honcho is hauled before Congress to explain the latest fleecing of the unsophisticated investor, he can be counted on to punctuate his testimony with this: “the U.S. markets are the deepest, widest, most liquid markets in the world.” Or words to that effect.
There are now two gripping questions before Congressional investigators, the FBI, the Justice Department and the New York State Attorney General’s office as they look at High Frequency Trading operations in U.S. markets:
Can markets give the appearance of liquidity while simultaneously being rigged?
How much “liquidity” is being created because the current market structure offers a slam-dunk opportunity for High Frequency Traders to loot the unsophisticated with impunity, thus drawing a steady flow of big money to the looting enterprise?
This, naturally, leads to two final questions: will market liquidity be negatively impacted, and by how much, if the incentive to steal without penalty is removed; has it come down to America having to accept a less liquid market or a market filled with thieves running a wealth transfer system in broad daylight?
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