Senate already on HFT trading reform due to todays market blowout

[Ruby the Liberal]

I can't even begin to imaging how many stop losses were blown through today when the tank happened.

From Annie Lowrey: "Ted Kaufman and Mark Warner making the case for high frequency trading reform on the floor bc of today's market boomerang"

[notesdev]

1. Funny

They didn't seem to have a problem with HFT when it was pushing the prices the other way, for well over a year now.

There's no preventing the crash they are trying to prevent. Let the HFT do its thing, it will inevitably do something like we saw today (again and again and again). Stop it, and all the HFT activity that's been pushing up the market for a year plus (on negligible volume) is gone...

Either way, it's looking like this little scam has nearly run its full course.

[Robbien]

2. BP oil platform blew up weeks ago and they are just now

thinking about getting around to maybe getting BP in to talk about it.

A couple of hours ago some rich guys got hurt on the stock market and they are all over it.

Sounds about right.

[girl gone mad]

5. It's the same MO.

Ignore the warnings, ignore the cries for regulation, let the robber barons roam free until the crisis hits, then shrug and say "hocoodanode?" while employing reverse socialism to force the people to clean up after their financial overlords.

[rudy23]

7. + 10000000 Good catch.

Well put.

[girl gone mad]

3. Too little, too late?

Activists have been sounding the alarm bells on HFT for the past year. It takes a huge collapse to get congress to turn their heads a little and take notice? There is no support for stocks at these prices, the recent gains were driven almost entirely on no volume through IB program trading (much of it fueled by taxpayer bailout money and ZIRP policy). The market is in very weak hands. This all should have been addressed before the big artificial rally, but our politicians welcomed the gains as if it reflected good policy and a solid recovery rather than mere casino capitalism at work.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Well stated.

IMO, the market is VERY over-inflated. We need a correction and soon or the whole thing is going to come down. P/E ratios are at unheard levels yet resistance is still high!

[Warpy]

6. A trade of a billion shares of anything should shut the system down

for the rest of the afternoon while the whole thing is sorted out.