Flash Boys

English language

Published March 23, 2015

ISBN:
978-0-393-35159-0
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4 stars (6 reviews)

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt is a book by the American writer Michael Lewis, published by W. W. Norton & Company on March 31, 2014. The book is a non-fiction investigation into the phenomenon of high-frequency trading (HFT) in the US financial market, with the author interviewing and collecting the experiences of several individuals working on Wall Street. Lewis concludes that HFT is used as a method to front run orders placed by investors. He goes further to suggest that broad technological changes and unethical trading practices have transformed the U.S. stock market from "the world's most public, most democratic, financial market" into a "rigged" market.

2 editions

Review of 'Flash Boys' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Flash Boys describes what high frequency trading (HFT) is and why it's done. In spite of the very technical nature, the books manages to make this pretty understandable.

The book also chronicles the story of a band of people that try to prevent the flashtraders from messing with your and mine stock orders.

Everything is described from an outsiders angle and gradually peels away the many different layers of the story. A technique which I really liked for this subject.

Overall, I learned a lot and would suggest this to any one interested in stocks and trading. It will probably not help you in making better decisions, but it's great background information.