A book, Flash Boys published in 2014 by Michael Lewis, disclosed various unethical trading practices by Wall Street. The primarily reason behind these escalating practices was a favoritism, which improved pricing fairness in the financial markets by some regulatory changes, on the other side advancement in technology also made contribution in such practices.
Brad Katsuyama, a Canadian banker who was the whistleblower, remained the focus of Lewis’s story. Brad had worked for the Royal Bank of Canada in the New York trading desk. He started to ask questions, as he saw some odd system responses to his trading requests in 2010.
The causes he sought out and disclosed regarding high frequency trading led to increase in disruptions and cause the anger in the general public about the ethics of the financial markets. Some of the people were aware of such prevailing practices and its causes while fewer claimed for the IT advancement in financial markets.
The cases poses the questions: how our concepts of wealth being affected by the IT? What are the ways that lead to “flash crashes”? Are the markets rigged? Whether IT would have the contribution in any disruption to the financial markets in future?
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