PeachesMcPie

Hi Scott, thanks for taking the time. Just to play devil's advocate here; Couldn't you make the argument that books like yours are somewhat sensationalist and basically contribute to the lack of faith in the marketplace and you are mostly capitalizing on the fact that fear sells books? To be honest, I think that most retail investors are disenfranchised by the market because their savings were down 40% at one point after the credit crisis, not because block orders are getting sniffed out by algos. If some 'expert' on CNBC is screaming that mom and pop should be worried about their savings because of robots, thats probably going to get a lot of people worked up about a problem that doesn't really affect them (except maybe flash crash, which seems to be basically what a lot of this discussion leverages).

For example, it seems that all the people over at Themis Trading who are so noisy (along with dinosaurs in mutual funds that aren't really adding any value to begin with), are just trying to protect their turf.

Besides the exception of the self-correcting flash crash, in the last 10 years markets have become more liquid, beta exposure through ETFs has become far cheaper than paying fees to a mutual fund, and its cutting out a lot of middlemen, many of whom provide no additional value or stability. The problems you address in terms of lack of liquidity for institutions due to market fragmentation seems to mostly be a burden for unsophisticated players that probably won't be around for much longer anyway due to the natural evolution of the marketplace. And hey, maybe they still do manage 20 billion dollars today and can afford to lobby, but the point is that to some extent we need the old to die off to make room for the new (maybe some fund managers who don't just collect assets and fees)?

Is there a difference between looking for cracks and trying to claim that the "game is rigged"? I imagine the latter probably sells books, but it also is potentially a disingenuous characterization of the environment.