Whoopee! After the press began to shine increasingly strong spotlights on the collection, sale and use of advance looks at potentially market-moving data - and as part of a settlement with NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman – thank you Eric – BlackRock agreed in January to stop surveying analysts to get clues about views on public companies before such data was published, also paying $400k to settle the investigation.
Then, in February, after consultation they noted, with Schneiderman, and with owner Warren Buffett, Business Wire agreed to stop selling direct, high- frequency data feeds to high-frequency trading firms. In March, privately owned Marketwired agreed to do the same. Thomson Reuters, to its credit, stopped giving traders early looks at consumer confidence reports to traders who paid for the privilege, way back in July.
Now, suddenly, in a mad scramble, everyone wants in on the act – with investigations of insider trading based on early, paid-for looks at market-moving data reportedly underway at the SEC, FINRA, the CFTC… and lately the FBI! Maybe they had some advance info of their own, regarding the publication in late March of “Flash Boys”- the flashy, fast-moving, fast-selling book by Michael Lewis, kick-started with a flashy March 31st interview on “60 Minutes”…that began thusly:
“The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism, is rigged.”
Shock? Awe? Not to readers of the OPTIMIZER, we’d have to say, which has been writing and railing about this for over five years now! Maybe THIS TIME, the SEC – and the stock exchanges they purportedly regulate, and who are among the major aiders and abettors – and beneficiaries of fast-feeds and flash trading – will actually REGULATE!
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