Banks using TARP $ to Trade Stocks & make MOney using HFT & Quant

[MikeNY]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hft-quants-crush-main-street-investors-2009-10-06?pagenumber=1

Banks are using the money the Government gave them to trade stocks, using High Frequency Trading & Quantitative Analysis to beat the suckers and create a Cash Cow, not lending money to small business to create jobs. I started another thread how Wall Street is using HFT & Quant. A. to beat the small investor. Using our money to fiance thier trades to cheat us. Sorry I forgot to add this info to the other thread.

[Andy62]

I'm really not sure of that. Bank accounting is vary complex and isolating the source of funds is more than difficult.

[MikeNY]

Yeah I agree gordon, but Market Watch is part of the Wall Street Journal. In my years of reading the Journal and Market Watch they have been a relibable source. The Banks will be using thier Trading Unit for this. I've known two Currency Trader's (dated one's daughter) and Currency Trading along with Futures and Options has always been a cash cow for Big Banks. One worked at a Investment Bank and the other at a Commerical Bank. If I'd never meet these guys I'd not have known about that aspect.

[Andy62]

Mike,Anything done by politicians is going to be full of holes. There are always vulnerabilies to attack that are perfectly legal or at least there isn't enough evidence for the perpetrators to be prosecuted. There are so many layers of accounting, decision making, and authority that they are almost impossible to penetrate and they are constantly changing. Each manager is creating their own mazes and controlling information within their own zone for their own self protection. I know of one bank where the auditors just gave up because they couldn't figure it out and just gave a favorable rating [they couldn't make it through the maze created by the manager] Down the line nobody knows what is happening because of the multiple tiers and the compartmentalization. I would be willing to be that your investment banker friend had no idea what was going on and if he did he couldn't prove it in court and might face a counter suit. Under those circumstances;. why would he disturb a situation like that when he was makng money. The bigger the bureaucracy and the more protections that are put in -the more vulunerable it becomes for the scoundrels. "It's baked into the cake." It is like the party game where you form a circle and someone begins by making a statement which is then passed on from person to person around the circle. At the end the statement has totally changed. Just think about that concept in a multi-tiered, compartmentalized, bureaucracy where the information is being controlled and you get some idea of how the players do it. "For change to happen in a large bureaucracy the bureaucracy has to fail."Gordon

[MikeNY]

I agree Gordon, and things are always hidden! If I had not meet that gf I'd have never known. What I heard was the Trader's for the Commerical Bank made about 30% Profit per year, year in and year out in Currency, Futures and Options. They train these guys and have the best support possible; run thier Operations like a War Room. Her dad opened his own private business after he retired, Trading Currency.