Item — HN Reader

> I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos

No, it's an anonymous Twitter account, you read the name wrong, "Beff Jezos" (sic), not "Jeff Bezos".

Also if you look at the purest form of markets, which is probably high frequency trading, there are no monopolies and no cartels. It's an intensely competitive industry with relatively small profits given their transaction volume.

3 comments

I don't think that's correct. Access to the fiber links or colocation in a facility is not only ridiculously expensive you have to know the right people (the cartel) to get it done.

I can't just offer a crazy amount of money and get access, the other major players have to let me play.

You actually can just offer a (not very large) amount of money and get access. The fees aren't even that large and they are public see [1] for example. The startup costs for an HFT would be comparable to a restaurant buildout, it's really not a capital intensive business.

[1]: https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/Wireless_Connectivity_Fees_a...

If that's "the purest form" of something, give me the dirty version any day.

An utterly useless human activity, that does nothing for actual humanity but simply serves as a wealth redistribution technique shared among a tiny number of highly-self-interested individuals ... it might be "pure" but it's not "pure" in any way.

You don't understand market making and it's not ok to pretend you do.

I don't know if you have been on the other side of what market makers do, but its not exactly a day at the beach. Once you gain enough insight to see whats going on the charts you just see it as a graveyard of traders positions, stop losses and their capital. This happens every minute the market is open at every timeframe.

Have you ever wonder why the markets appear so irrational? Great economic data and the worse drop in months or vice versa. These are the expectations, emotions and psychology of the masses that are liquidated by market makers. Have you also just had a gut instinct to buy or sell and market moves completely opposite beyond your psychological limit. Only for it to start moving into profit once you have closed at a huge loss. This is all market makers do all day.

In principle there is nothing immoral here. Participants are all taking risks voluntarily, no one is forcing you risk trading the stock market. But in practice market makers take positions at the stop losses 90% of market participants giving them significantly overwhelming supply of assets at the best prices, while everyone else sees consistent intractable losses.

This is a Darwinian environment where only the biggest, fiercest and most aggressive players will win by killing weaker, smaller and less knowledgeable players. The only way for a small fish to win is to understand the rules the market makers play by. Their strengths, desires, weaknesses, limitations and once you do you realize that this was someone's capital, but it's also capital not going to the market makers.

I think you intended to reply to me (GP), not the parent.

You're ignoring my objection to this stuff, which has nothing to do with immorality and everything to do with with the waste and misdirection of resources. Why do people participate in this stuff? Because someone might get rich. From my POV, that's a waste and misdirection of resources. People getting rich is not the right motivation for pareto or utilitarian optimal allocations.

People are entitled to do things that are not an optimal resource allocation. Social systems that block that tend be very nasty.

Capitalism and people getting rich is for better or worse exactly the stabilizing factor that has lead to the success of the modern world we take for granted. Capitalism is the worst except for all the others.

I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic.

What you see as misdirection of resources is the product of competitive market forces that drive innovation and efficiency. And the market often finds value in ways not immediately apparent.

Is less efficient resource arbitration (futures, forex) worth the trade-off? Producers can make their own market and set their own prices. But do that in an information vacuum and there will be increased deadweight loss in the form of higher bid-ask spreads, increasing costs, reducing economic activity.

There are more benefits in the form of reducing volatility and increasing liquidity.

It is not at all as obvious as you make it that society would be better off had HFTs and similarly received sorts of "financialization" not exist.

> I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic.

I empathize that it appears the case that the market has some emergent properties that allow it to optimize allocation, but to say you know its an optimal allocation leans overly simplistic.

"I think investing in a venture that will do <X> seems like a good idea" may, indeed, have some connection to an at least pareto optimal resource allocation.

"I will offer your $X in N months for <X>" might also play a useful role in resource allocation.

"I will buy this 3rd derivative instrument that reflects guesswork about guesswork about preferences and hold it for 3 hours" is just the financial service industry fucking us over.

I did not suggest knowing it's optimal either.

I'm pointing out The Economy/Market and its mechanisms is a complex system. I urged caution making conclusions from facile knee jerk first order observables when it's the unknown nth order effects we should probably try to identify and characterize first.

> just the financial service industry fucking us over.

Maybe. But why think you know this? I haven't even tried to quantify the pros/cons, and I'm unwilling to stake a position until I do.

Instead of reaching for this horribly irritating snark (I'm sure GP understands market making enough to understand why HFT exists), why not be charitable and consider the opportunity cost of the smartest people spending their mental energy to create a slightly more efficient market? Is this really a responsible use of this resource?

Consider a similar irritation when seeing those with a superficial grasp of a complex topic oversimplify and make unwarranted conclusions.

And it's precisely the GPs unwavering certainty that HFTs are net negative that accurately informs they do not understand the full implications of what HFTs offer.

Because when you're aware of the full picture, it is not at all obvious society will be better off without it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37912662

HFT is a dance in the shadows of the most highly-regulated practices in history (securities exchanges), I don't think it's a good example of "pure" markets being immune to monopolies.

Each of those regulations is a tombstone for the monopolies and cartels that came before, and there will absolutely be more tombstones to come. The history of the stock market is rife with corruption, stock manipulation, and short-thrifting the general public. The great fortunes of the 20th century were made on the backs of practices that are all kinds of illegal today, and with good reason.