Number two of my recent harvest is now also consumed. 'Flash Boys' is written in the same investigative style we know from Michael Lewis. It tells the (true) breathtaking story of Wall Street boys who come to realise that they are getting screwed by HFT's (high frequency traders) an decide to fight them. It shows that even well meant regulation is just another tool for people apt in finding loopholes to take benefit. I wonder why there no Belgians on Wall Street... we're good in finding loopholes in regulations! Maybe the Russians are just better than us (lots of HFT firms are stacked with Russian traders).
The "benefit" for HFT firms equals billions of dollars per year. With >90% of all orders placed on the stock exchanges coming from HFT's and >50% of all orders executed coming from HFTs one can rightfully wonder if this is still worthy the name of investing. Afterall they only hold shares for some microseconds and only execute an order when they can act as middle man: meaning only when they have someone to sell it from and someone else to sell it to, so they never take any risk either. The book is highly recommended except if you have some shares yourself and suffer from imsomnia, then reading the book will not help you...
With that book being finished I was strolling around my local library desparatly trying to find something else to read. And it struck me that the fate of library books are to be rejected more than chosen while owned books are read once but cherrished forever. I'm still recovering from that rare moment of insight...
On June 12, I was invited to attend the official ceremony of the change of command of one of the Belgian airforce basis. The ceremony was very impressive and the reception afterwards very well attended! As the picture below tells you I was sitting on the second row :-)
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