11/20/2013

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?

10 comments:

  1. Zach • 27 minutes ago Report Abuse

    In the US, you can take a hardship loan against your retirement. You must pay back with interest so that your retirement fund is not depleted. This sounds like a reasonable alternative. You can't have people taking money out whenever they want, it would make it too difficult to plan for how to invest the CPF portfolio.

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  2. WYSIWYG
    WTSAWTD
    What they say ain't what they do.

    Just a suggestion.

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  3. That's a good variation in a different context, more in politics.

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  4. Hi Zach, welcom to the blog. Not sure about the US retirement fund you mentioned. Is it the person's own money or something else?

    The CPF is the individual's own saving. It is so painful when someone is in debt for a small sum and cannot temporary borrow from his huge savings while others can take his savings to invest in high risk investments.

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  5. We live in a physical, material world. To achieve objectives, we have to "move stuff around" -- i.e. take physical action in a physical world.

    In the realm of talk and chit chat, you can say anything you like. You can make more bullshit out of bullshit, and it can go on forever without a damn thing changing in the physical world to move you to some big-talk "objective".

    Which is why talk is cheap.

    Achievement can only be verified by hard physical, empirical evidence -- which can only come from: HUMAN ACTION.

    >> The CPF is the individual's own saving.

    Prove it. Show evidence to back up your claim.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. HFT is coming whether you like it or not. Is it good for you or me - dunno and don't care.
    Is it good for the country and stock exchange. Certainly is. Otherwise it would not be here.
    Years ago, we saw how the coming of big supermart had wiped out the provision shops in heartland. Have the people benefitted from shopping in supermart compare with provision shop, I certainly think so.
    So the HFT is coming. Let it come, I am not betting against the big boys with their fast and powerful machines, I will just hang on to their coattails.

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  8. Oldhorse, this HFT animal is not something so innocent. And you don't even know what they are doing. You can't hang onto their coat tail. They move in nano seconds. Before you even see it the trades are done and gone.

    You people out there would not know what is happening in the stock market. What I can say is that it is as good aa dead. Trading rooms are like cemetries. Everyone twiddling their thumbs or sleeping.

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  9. Relax lah!
    HFT is just like PAP.
    They are on our side.

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  10. Hehehehehehe...so comforting to know that.

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