HFT Firms At Long Last Subpoenaed

And they thought they would get away with it... Over a year after HFT firms succeeded in crashing the stock market following an unprecedented spike in churn which eliminated all market liquidity in non-rebate providing stocks, followed by an across the board HFT STOP move which sent the Dow down 1000 points literally in seconds, the same HFT parasites that do nothing to provide liquidity but merely collect rebates in a low price, few high volume stocks as Zero Hedge has been warning since the summer of 2009, are finally getting the regulators to act and not to pull an Obama and blame it all on Waddell and Reed. Reuters [2] reports: "The U.S. securities regulator has sent subpoenas to high-frequency trading firms in relation to last year's "flash crash" probe, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is also examining whether these firms further exacerbated the panic on May 6, 2010, when U.S. stock markets suffered a record fall within minutes, the Journal said. Some of the subpoenas have been sent since the start of the summer, the people told the Journal. The paper did not name the firms involved. [coughgetcocough] It is not known whether the subpoenas will result in any enforcement actions, the paper said. A subpoena does not necessarily reflect a suspicion of wrongdoing." Well, it is known that no enforcement actions will result if the SEC wants to retain its invisible low volume melt up bid which has pushed the market ever higher on 98% of the trading days in the past 2.5 years. If however, the SEC is willing to pull and S&P and finally do the right now, then all the 19 year olf math wizards who control 70% of the S&P churn should be worried. Very worried. As should all the momos whose only strategy for the past two years been BTFD.
Ah the horror: to think that the alternative of HFT is having to learn such arcan concepts as "fundamentals" and relative value.

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