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Comment by TheNanex | Hacker News Reader

Yikes. Lots of misinformation here.

First of all, this has nothing to do with High-Frequency Trading. It's about the NYSE not delivering a product (SIP real-time data) while collecting $100M a year for that service. This was happening for at least 3 years.

I am a champion of free markets. The term "High-Frequency Trading critic" is a label others use when they either can't understand and/or refute solid evidence.

I'm happy to answer questions.

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Can you comment on how hard it was to find another period exhibiting this behavior? The article says We chose this period because there was a noticeable lag in the public quote from the NYSE versus quotes from other exchanges, allowing us to rule out the consolidation process as a source of the delay. Did you have to look for a few periods to see the behavior, or did you look for a few to get a sample that showed the problem more clearly?

Do you have any info on how often lag was present, or how often over a specific threshold?

Do you know how representative you sample was with respect to when lag was present?

I understand you may not have gone into this much detail in your research, but if you have any info like this, I think it helps illustrate the scope of the problem.

I second that answers to these types of questions would be very helpful! The more context the better.

http://www.nanex.net/NxResearch/ResearchPage/5/

It happens all the time (ALL. THE. TIME.) and have documented dozens of examples. There are links to many of those examples on that page (fantaseconds).

I've also posted many examples on twitter @nanexllc using recent data (yes, this is still a problem!)

@TheNanex, Eric?

I have always been facinated by the underlying technology that drives Nanex's products. I follow http://www.nanex.net/NxResearch/ regularly and would like to see some more technical anotomy of some of the tools you guys have built.

Thanks and great work!

It's about the NYSE not delivering a product (SIP real-time data) while collecting $100M a year for that service

And, just to be clear, the NYSE generously agreed to pay a $5M fine as punishment?

The actual SEC order is linked to by Nanex, and can be found here: http://sec.gov/litigation/admin/2012/34-67857.pdf It explains NYSE's failings in more detail, e.g. "Inadequate Compliance Efforts" and "Failure to Retain Business Records".

Excellent question: they were ECSTATIC to pay $5M

Covington and Burling - who represented the NYSE in this matter, used the paltry $5M fine as bragging rights in their year end letter to clients! 'We got the NYSE off with just $5M'

Nice.

Thank you for the work you do Eric. The light you shine on the dark parts of markets is incredible.

Please excuse my ignorance if this question is dumb, but what is the name of the kind of Chart 3? I've never seen one like it and it's fascinating to me - it seems like it's a 2d line graph with some shaded regions, but not a heat map.

I don't have a name for that chart. It's a customized display I wrote that I found makes it easiest to view quote spreads and trades from multiple exchanges. I write in "c" combining simple graphics: lines, pixels and text.

Then I propose "TheNanex c chart". It's information rich, multi-multi-dimensional, and really tells the story in a nutshell.

I printed one out and put it on my "Tufte" shelf [1].

Edit: Add [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte

I am a big fan of Edward Tufte.

Hey, a bit late to the game here, but I just want to say I'm a huge fan of your work.

At my last job I worked on one of the Reg CAT bids, and I spent a lot of time looking at Nanex Research--totally mind blowing. The markets would be a better place if the regulators were doing Nanex-style analysis. Keep up the good work!

Please send me info on variable rate annuities and what they can do for my family.

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