Broken Markets: How High Frequency Trading and Predatory Practices on Wall Street Are Destroying Investor Confidence and Your Portfoli by Sal L. Arnuk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a free ebook from BN.com, and it is no longer free.
I'm glad I read this for it explained to my satisfaction why one of my sell limit orders sold on the Boston exchange when its trigger price never reached that price on NYSE that day. It explained to my satisfaction why high volume occurs when the price drops lower than 7-8% intraday and yet it can be higher by the end of the day. It explained to my satisfaction why I rarely see volume exceed 50% of its Average Daily Volume on dramatic price up days. There are High Frequency Traders, arbitragers, and Dark Pools who can read my orders between the time it takes to submit and to execute, and who act on that information.
An analogy the authors frequently use in this book has this shopper ready to checkout at the grocery store. I head for a checkout line, and suddenly there are 9 other carts in front of me. I head for another line, and 9 more carts are there. And so on.
So much has changed in the last 15 years in stock markets and SEC rules, and this book explains much of it. The stock markets were previously not-for-profit with rules for self-governance and the SEC helped the investor. Now they are for-profit corporations and the rules of the SEC have been helping traders rather than investors.
I recommend it for readers with portfolios, even if your portfolio is managed by others. I don't give it the fifth star for too much of it is repetitious.

View all my reviews