I didn't see too many female colleagues there to either brighten up the place or add any sort of a woman's touch to it.

Could be quite macho and a bit smelly !

:-)

p

The HNS order had price priority all along, it didn't "jump" the queue.

Absolutely. Another issue is that "HFT" is such a vague term that no one even knows whom he is referring to. (If you've read my posts, you'd notice that I very rarely use the term.) No one is going to step up to defend the group if they don't know that they're actually associated with it. To demonstrate my point, here's a recent example where he outed Chopper Trading's fines for excessive order modification:

Nanex ~ 29-Nov-2013 ~ Excessive Order Modifications

Quite honestly, everyone in Chopper Trading is capable of making 2000 cancellations in a second, including the click trader who joined for only a few months. However, Chopper has many mediocre manual traders and really only has 3 automated trading teams, and only 1 of those 3 pursues opportunities on a short time scale and would truly qualify as "fast" in my opinion (by the way, only this team is staffed fully by PhDs).

Placing excessive order cancellations is such an amateur mistake that I'm certain that the people on that team wouldn't make, so my best guess is that the mistake originated from either of the 2 other teams. So Nanex is really attacking the activities of ordinary automated traders like Tom, Dick and Harry, who are using Multicharts or something.

To put things in perspective, Chopper's "HFT" team is very fast, but still mediocre.

In the example in the video presentation from 33:30 to 37:45, the long term trader was first to submit a buy order for 20.02, got partially filled and slid back with the remainder to 20.01. HFT detected this and then stepped ahead by posting a "hide and light" hidden order for 20.02 that lit up as soon as 20.02 was permissible. When both orders were rebooked, HFT had priority over the long term trader.

This practice clearly amounts to queue-jumping and front-running.

Neither HFT nor Chopper Trading are mentioned there, Nanex just generally noted there was a fine. You made it appear as if something were inaccurate, are you sure this was the link you meant to include?

You just said it yourself, the other trader posted a bid for 20.02 AFTER seeing the 20.01. A bid for 20.02 has price priority over a bid for 20.01. This is neither 'front-running' nor 'queue-jumping'.

See:

That was before the market unlocked and orders were rebooked to 20.02. HFT unfairly gained time-priority over the long term trader who did submit his order for 20.02 before.

Do you know if the hidden "hide and light" order was active in the sense that others could trade against it even as the market was locked?



Thanks, yet I don't see any HFT or high frequency or specific division of Chopper Trading mentioned there. My impression was that this was your argument.

Price takes precedence over time. If you placed a bid at $10 and I placed a bid at $20 ten days later, and our orders are still standing, I'll be in front of you no matter what happens. It doesn't matter that I placed my order later than you; it also doesn't matter what order type I used.

I am aware but the price of both orders was 20.02 after rebooking.

This practice clearly amounts to queue-jumping and front-running.

The trader who placed his (hidden) bid at $20.02 was already ahead of the trader who placed his bid at $20.01! He improved the best bid! Of course he should get rebooked ahead!

You're speaking as though the person who placed his bid at $20.01 should be rebooked ahead of the person who placed his bid at $20.02. If that's the case, why not just rebook the bids at $20.00, $19.99... ahead too? Why not rebook the bid at $0.01 at the very front of the queue at $20.02 when the market gets unlocked?

You'll certainly achieve Bodek's dream of getting rid of the hide-not-slide order type then, because certainly no one will want to improve the best bid in such a market. (You can prove this mathematically, by the way, since by iterated elimination of dominated strategies, everyone will want to place his bid at $0.01, so there's no use for the hide-not-slide anymore.)