The High Frequency Trading Debate is Not New

I love Michael Lewis. He is the writer I most want to be. I live in his world, I am a journalist and have been a broker and am married to a trader. I know stuff. But I am not Michael Lewis. He is a brilliant writer. I am a hack and part-time flack. HOWEVER, I take exception to the recent the fuss over his book "Flash Boys." I keep hearing on CNBC that NO ONE knew how big the problem of high frequency trading was. I did. Here is one of the tongue-in-cheek blogs I wrote about the issue - in September, 2010.

In the 1960's American sitcom Get Smart there were two opposing agencies - CONTROL and KAOS. At CONTROL you had The Chief, Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) and Agent 99 as the good guys. KAOS was the bad guys of course.
In today's seemingly perplexing world of electronic trading The Chief appears to be played by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. The well-meaning but hapless Maxwell Smart is played by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro. (The SEC staff can take turns as Agent 99.) KAOS is represented by high frequency and algorithmic trading.
The Chief (Schumer) made a strong suggestion (order) to regulators to get a grip on KAOS, by looking into slowing down some high-speed trading at times of market stress and investigating manipulative strategies including quote stuffing.
Agent 86 (Schapiro) got on the case and the investigation is underway. One telling statement by Schapiro this week alluded to the algos that automate execution when she said that regulators need to decide whether they "are subject to appropriate rules and controls."
"An out-of-control algorithm not only can cause serious losses to the firm that uses it, it can also cause severe trading disruptions that harm market stability and shake investor confidence," Schapiro said in the statement. She added that the SEC will review market fragmentation and the role of dark pools of liquidity that fall outside the traditional market structure.
“High-frequency trading firms are subject to very little in the way of obligations,” Schapiro said at an event held by the Security Traders Association in Washington. “We will consider carefully whether these firms should be subject to an appropriate regulatory structure governing key aspects of their market behavior, including quoting and trading strategies.”
The SEC may also need to peer a little more closely into the market structure that preceded all of these issues. A third of TabbFORUM readers polled said that the Securities and Exchange Commission had something to do with the May 6 flash crash: 31% of respondents to the poll blamed the crash on Reg NMS. (Still, 29% said it was “something else." Cue Siegfried - the Vice President in charge of Public Relations and Terror at KAOS).
All of this investigating is good news, as long as moderation is the byword for resolution. If indeed your opinion is that HFT and algos are run by a shady KAOS-style cartel on Wall Street then the more controls the better. It is my opinion that KAOS-as-HFT is a figment of non-financial industry scaremongers, and that a lighter touch is needed.
CONTROL can best come out on top if it deploys the proper tools: pre-trade risk management and controls, real-time risk management, real-time market monitoring and surveillance. All of these will help to stop KAOS in its tracks before it has the chance to throw another bomb into the room (flash crash...get it?).

I knew about HFT. The SEC knew about HFT. The trading firms and exchanges and brokers knew about HFT. And everyone knew it was a bomb waiting for a detonator. I just wish I had written the book!