WTSAWTD

This is a slight variation from WYSIWYG. WTSAWTD means What They Said And What They Don’t. A couple of years back, we were told that big funds would be invited to trade in the stock market, to provide liquidity so that the market will be active and investors can buy or sell easier. Trading activities would increase and good business for everyone. Bid sizes were also reduced for the same purpose. Expensive stocks would be split to make it easier for the small traders to buy one or two units at lower capital outlay, ie more business also. Computer tradings would be introduced and facilitated to improve liquidity and volumes. Everything was done for the good of the market and small investors. Then lunch breaks were even removed and the carrot, more trading hours mean more business, at least another ten per cent increase in business. Derivatives are good, sophisticated instruments for the sophisticated fools. With all these changes, the stock market would fly to the moon.
 
All this has come to past. The volumes get thinner and thinner. The small traders were wiped out, sent to the cleaners. Who made the money was obvious. The stock market is a zero sum game. One makes another must lose.
 
Many good things were said and many not good things were not said. No one talks about how dangerous the big funds and their computers were to the small traders. No one says anything about redesigning the trading system to facilitate the computer traders to clean up the small traders. No one says anything about the unfair advantages of the computer traders and the trading system against the small traders. No one says that no lunch break was to allow the computers to keep trading without having to square and reopen their positions. No one says smaller bid size allows the computers to trade at lower cost and can move faster or can manipulate the stocks more efficiently against the small traders. No one says the losers were the small and big traders not using computers. No one says anything about who are the absolute winners in the market. No one says the number of genuine traders in the market has drastically been reduced and that if the computers stop trading, the market will come to a stand still or turn into a grave yard.
 
No one is going to say that the market is dying. And they are still saying the market is doing very well, in the pink of health. And to make it looks pinker, bring in the makeup artist for the dead, HFT will be introduced to increase volume and liquidity again. Now, what are they saying about HFT and are they not saying about HFT this time?