December 10, 2009
Call me naive, but since beginning my adventure into the stock market about three months ago I quickly came to the conclusion that there was some outside force manipulating stocks at a pace significantly faster than my ability to digest company information and react with a simple trade ticket to buy or sell. After looking into my suspicions via Internet searches I happened upon the issue of computer driven trading. I guess I was of the ignorant mindset that only a human would be allowed to initiate a trade. Basically I have come to the realization that the average individual has no chance what so ever against the algorithms and dark pools that are aligned to take his/her small savings a penny at a time at the speed of light. I can stare in amazement as the company stock charts bouncing up and down for no apparent real-world reasons, and now that I know that there is a mindless math program running at 50 gigahertz behind these movements I have given up and will chalk this experience up to the unrelenting Wall Street greed that will drive this nation into the ground. I have always considered myself a reasonably intelligent individual, but now I know what Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov must have felt like when he was defeated by IBM's Deep Blue Supercomputer.... This is a very sad day, and I hope that you seriously consider the ramifications of your decision upon the average American.