A news-breaking account of the global stock market's subterranean battles, Dark Pools portrays the rise of the "bots"--artificially intelligent systems that execute trades in milliseconds and use the cover of darkness to out-maneuver the humans who've created them. In the beginning was Josh Levine, an idealistic programming genius who dreamed of wresting control of the market from the big exchanges that, again and again, gave the giant institutions an advantage over the little guy. Levine created a computerized trading hub named Island where small traders swapped stocks, and over time his invention morphed into a global electronic stock market that sent trillions in capital through a vast jungle of fiber-optic cables. By then, the market that Levine had sought to fix had turned upside down, birthing secretive exchanges called dark pools and a new species of trading machines that could think, and that seemed, ominously, to be slipping the control of their human masters. Dark Pools is the fascinating story of how global markets have been hijacked by trading robots--many so self-directed that humans can't predict what they'll do next.

A plain English guide to high frequency trading and off-exchange trading practices In Dark Pools & High Frequency Trading For Dummies, senior private banker Jukka Vaananen has created an indispensable and friendly guide to what really goes on inside dark pools, what rewards you can reap as an investor and how wider stock markets and pricing may be affected by dark pools. Written with the classic For Dummies style that has become a hallmark of the brand, Vaananen makes this complex material easy to understand with an insider's look into the topic. The book takes a detailed look at the pros and the cons of trading in dark pools, and how this type of trading differs from more traditional routes. It also examines how dark pools are currently regulated, and how the regulatory landscape may be changing. Learn what types of dark pools exist, and how a typical transaction works Discover the rules and regulations for dark pools, and some of the downsides to trading Explore how dark pools can benefit investors and banks, and who can trade in them Recognize the ins and outs of automated and high frequency trading Because dark pools allow companies to trade stocks anonymously and away from the public exchange, they are not subject to the peaks and troughs of the stock market, and have only recently begun to take off in a big way. Written with investors and finance students in mind, Dark Pools & High Frequency Trading For Dummies is the ultimate reference guide for anyone looking to understand dark pools and dark liquidity, including the different order types and key HFT strategies.

In this book, Stefanie Kammerman shares her secrets, sheds a bright light on Dark Pool activity and teaches you how to spot these big trades before they move stock prices. Most people don't know that 40% of all trading volume happens in private stock exchanges called Dark Pools. Millions of shares are traded, but not reported for up to 24 hours, avoiding any immediate market impact. Following Dark Pool trades has allowed Stefanie to pick successful trades more than 90% of the time over the past four years - enough to earn you triple digit returns if you followed every trade she called. She even called out the last 11 corrections on social media - BEFORE they happened!

With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris, and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future. In March of 2006, four of the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. On that night, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a new breed, the quants. Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz--technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers--had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino. The quants helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Few realized, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster. Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize--and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast.

Global capital markets have undergone fundamental transformations in recent years and, as a result, have become extraordinarily complex and opaque. Trading space is no longer measured in minutes or seconds but in time units beyond human perception: milliseconds, microseconds, and even nanoseconds. Technological advances have thus scaled up imperceptible and previously irrelevant time differences into operationally manageable and enormously profitable business opportunities for those with the proper high-tech trading tools. These tools include the fastest private communication and trading lines, the most powerful computers and sophisticated algorithms capable of speedily analysing incoming news and trading data and determining optimal trading strategies in microseconds, as well as the possession of gigantic collections of historic and real-time market data. Fragmented capital markets are also becoming a rapidly growing reality in Europe and Asia, and are an established feature of U.S. trading. This raises urgent market governance issues that have largely been overlooked. Global Algorithmic Capital Markets seeks to understand how recent market transformations are affecting core public policy objectives such as investor protection and reduction of systemic risk, as well as fairness, efficiency, and transparency. The operation and health of capital markets affect all of us and have profound implications for equality and justice in society. This unique set of chapters by leading scholars, industry insiders, and regulators discusses ways to strengthen market governance for the benefit of society at whole.

Argues that post-crisis Wall Street continues to be controlled by large banks and explains how a small, diverse group of Wall Street men have banded together to reform the financial markets.

The U.S. stock market has been transformed over the last twenty-five years. Once a market in which human beings traded at human speeds, it is now an electronic market pervaded by algorithmic trading, conducted at speeds nearing that of light. High-frequency traders participate in a large portion of all transactions, and a significant minority of all trade occurs on alternative trading systems known as “dark pools.” These developments have been widely criticized, but there is no consensus on the best regulatory response to these dramatic changes. The New Stock Market offers a comprehensive new look at how these markets work, how they fail, and how they should be regulated. Merritt B. Fox, Lawrence R. Glosten, and Gabriel V. Rauterberg describe stock markets’ institutions and regulatory architecture. They draw on the informational paradigm of microstructure economics to highlight the crucial role of information asymmetries and adverse selection in explaining market behavior, while examining a wide variety of developments in market practices and participants. The result is a compelling account of the stock market’s regulatory framework, fundamental institutions, and economic dynamics, combined with an assessment of its various controversies. The New Stock Market covers a wide range of issues including the practices of high-frequency traders, insider trading, manipulation, short selling, broker-dealer practices, and trading venue fees and rebates. The book illuminates both the existing regulatory structure of our equity trading markets and how we can improve it.