"We risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance"
- Rubén Blades

"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it"
- Art Buchwald

"It's getting exciting now, two and one-half. Think of everything we've accomplished, man. Out these windows, we will view the collapse of financial history. One step closer to economic equilibrium"
- Tyler Durden

"It is your corrupt we claim. It is your evil that will be sought by us. With every breath, we shall hunt them down."
- Boondock Saints

Monday, January 23, 2012

HSBC Preferred Shares Smashed!

Mid day today HSBC Preferred shares took an onslaught from the HFT crowd.  The goal?  To use illiquid shares in an effort to beef up exchange quote quotas at the NBBO.  For more on HFT, listen to this.

First, the image from HFT Alert (212,487 Quotes and NO TRADES):

Then the quote fluttering table from HFT Alert Pro (notice at 12:20:38 14K quotes fluttered on the right table and 12:20:40 30K quote bursts registered on the left):

And from NANEX (h/t @BadAlgo):
For more on Preferred share bad algo attacks, refer to this page from Nanex

675 Millisecond view:


225 Millisecond view:


75 Millisecond view:


Themis Trading has tried to warn about this many times, they have their own trove of resources too.


Posted by Paul Revere at 1/23/2012 12:48:00 PM