[kortilla]

Yeah, they could have been working on something truly valuable like violating people’s privacy with ad-tech. Or maybe sucking millions of hours of people’s lives away with TikTok algo improvements. Maybe they could be working on the next MoviePass!

> zero sum game of stock arbitrage.

By your definition insurance is zero sum as well. But people find that generally useful. Taking risk off of peoples hands has value even if a widget doesn’t come out the other end.

[throw827474737]

> Yeah, they could have been working on something truly valuable like....

But why not just a reasonable product? Yes, what could that be, there cannot be something that is fairly priced and people really want, need, what just helps. Not today anymore!

> By your definition insurance

I know what you try there and on a very abstract level you are maybe slightly right, but PLEASE no, high level gambling (==milliseconds&millions) is not at all comparable to the insurance model in many regards, foremost maybe purpose for the community?

(and its pretty clear that fintech here sure doesn't mean the classical bank and modern "normal" payment system... ).

[kortilla]

> high level gambling

This is a weasel phrase. Insurance is high level gambling as well. They both use risk models to decide at what price they will sit on the opposite side of a trade for.

Decide where you really draw the line and if it’s time horizons that’s pretty arbitrarily stupid. Insurance uses re-insurance quite quickly to de-risk their own books so pretending trading within a minute vs daily/hourly is pretty silly.

Also, most “fintech” is not the “be the fasted to arb 2 exchanges” variety. It’s usually “be a market maker for products that you can relatively quickly price based on proprietary signals”. If speed is your only advantage, the cat and mouse game will wake you up one day getting beat to the order book on every trade.

> and its pretty clear that fintech here sure doesn't mean the classical bank and modern "normal" payment system...

Not sure where you got that from. All of this is interconnected. The “classical banks” are all participating in deep fast moving bond markets. JPM doesn’t send their orders to some old timey trader with a cigar and a bowler hat via telephone. They use fintech like the rest of the industry.

[throw827474737]

You didn't want to understand me. Sure both use risk models, but exactly this still doesn't make them anyhow relatable? And sure I know still that everything is interconnected, but it is clear that if someone complains about fintech (but other arguments then immediately go into the "oh you say fintech, but what about .."), he doesn't mean the necessary stuff like payments processing or normal markets. anyway fine to disagree here ;)

[kortilla]

No, I’m saying your hand-wavy “fintech is bad” doesn’t actually point to any thing in particular. Most of HFT is not “do the same thing as the other players, but faster”.

[semiquaver]

Most HFTs primarily engage in market making (matching buyers and sellers) which absolutely is a very useful and necessary function to society unless your position is that markets should not exist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_maker

[afiori]

You could hold the position that markets are good but not everything should have a market.

For example you can forbid futures and derivatives without forbidding good old stock trading.

[bostik]

I'm against pure speculation, but forbidding futures outright would feel ... wrong. Locking prices for contracts up front is a useful thing.

However, it might be much more interesting, and societally more beneficial, to require that anyone trading in commodities futures must have, at all times, the facility to take delivery of the contracts. The upper limit of exposure for a trading desk would therefore be bound by the capacity of their physical infrastructure.

[cturner]

That would lead to wider spreads. Then, liquidity would move to another country that did not impose that rule.

[kortilla]

Futures are massively useful to both halves in commodities markets (producers and consumers). Why would you want to ban them?