RUSSIA, HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING, AND HIGH OCTANE

Here's an intriguing one to contemplate, shared by Mr. S.D. What if, in addition to putting into place all the steps to mount a parallel international financial clearing system, in addition to its own domestic clearing systems, Russia was also actively engaged in trying to decipher the mysteries of HFT, High Frequency Trading, for possible "intervention" in western financial markets?

Well, that's exactly what they've been trying to do, according to this article:

Russia tried to learn how to use high-speed trading to rock market, U.S. says

Now I hope you caught a couple of interesting "revelations" in this article, that suggest that Russia's intentions are somewhat different than this article's analysis suggests. One, Russia wants to learn about the whole sequence of HFT from the dark pools to the algorithms that make it possible:

"But one of the topics Russia wanted to know more about is a topic the U.S. government is also struggling to comprehend: high-frequency trading. Russia apparently wanted to use such trading to destabilize the market.

"According to the FBI, a banker, Evgency Buryakov, was told to tell a Russian state-owned news outlet to get information on three specific questions. This was a conversation he had with the Russian trade representative, Igor Sporyshev, as translated by the FBI:

"Buryakov: You can ask about ETF... E-T-F. E, exchange.

"Sporyshev: Yes, got it.

"Buryakov:How they are used, the mechanisms of use for destabilization of the markets.

"Sporyshev: Mechanism — of — use — for —market — stabilization in modern conditions.

"Buryakov: For destabilization.

"Sporyshev: Aha.

"Buryakov: Then you ask them what they think about limiting the use of trading robots... You can also ask about the potential interest of the participants of the exchange to the products tied to the Russian Federation." (Italicized emphasis added)

Now, what's very revealing about this article is that the article itself, citing Burykov's and Sporyshev's conversation, concludes that the Russians "apparently wanted to use such trading to destablize the market." But if one examines Burykov's statement more closely - "How they are used, the mechanisms of use for destablization of the markets" - what he rather seems to be wanting to know is how HFT has been used by the West's financial institutions previously to destablize markets, implying that he's really searching for potential incriminating information about massive market rigging in the West via the ability to manipulate the algorithms and trades that make up so much modern high frequency trading. His remarks seem to imply, in my high octane speculative opinion, that Russia either suspects or knows there is something drastically wrong with the western markets, and that they are being manipulated on a truly massive scale. Not such a bad assumption, given the LIBOR and FOREX rigging that have been alleged. This reading would seem to be supported by Burykov's last comments, which sound less like an espionage boss giving a shopping list to a field asset, but rather like someone trying to find out about how such manipulations would affect Russian products. Similarly, he wants to know if anyone in the West perceives dangers, and if they would be willing to entertain the idea of "limiting the use of trading robots."  This sounds very much like the shopping list of someone who not only suspects massive rigging has occurred through the use of HFT, but also of someone who knows the dangers this would pose to any potentially parallel system of international financial clearing. And if one were to establish such a system, one of the major selling points to invite participation would be to demonstrate, via incontrovertible data and proof, that the western markets and system are corrupted and manipulated.

The question is, why would the Russians suspect this, and be searching for how it was done? My guess (and here comes high octane speculation part two) is that they have been watching the banker deaths and suicides very carefully, and come to similar conclusions that we have come to here on this website, namely, that most of the deaths appear to be of people who would have had some sort of access to computer-driven trades and financial information, and secondly, that some of these deaths involved individuals connected to the other rickety scaffolding of the western financial system: mortgages and insurance. The Russians may have even entertained the type of speculations that I entertained and have repeatedly voiced regarding the 2010 flash crash: that that event, while "originating in Kansas City"(If one follows the official explanation), may actually have signaled that another player, entirely external to the "big guys" of the system, had invaded it and conducted a little "test-and-message-sending" demonstration. To put it succinctly, I am suggesting that this Russian "financial 'espionage'" is deeply connected to HFT, market rigging by the West, to the banker deaths, and to the possibility that the Russians suspect that someone or something else might have invaded the Western markets.

There is, of course, a second revelation in this juicy article, and that's this:

"In the book “Flash Boys,” author Michael Lewis says a surprisingly large number of the people pulled in by the big Wall Street banks to build the technology for high-frequency trading were Russians."

"One, former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov, was convicted of stealing trade secrets, before his conviction was overturned.'

In other words, Russian programming experts helped to build the HFT systems of many western financial institutions. That raises the implications of Mr. Buryakov's shopping list - and my high octane speculations - considerably. We'll know something is up if, all of a sudden, bankers start walking off the tops of skyscrapers, or diving into spiked fences, or stepping in front of trains, or deciding to use a nail gun to drive several nails into their brains, in the company of Russian financial computer programming experts who are doing the same thing.

See you on the flip side...

 

Posted in

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

12 Comments

  1. johnycomelately on February 1, 2015 at 9:29 pm

    According to the site below there is a globally agreed plan to replace the unilateral US dollar reserve with multilateral SDRs backed by a range of assets (including stocks and financial instruments) to be issued by the IMF.

    Since the US has veto rights in the IMF it has been dragging its feet on the issue much to the displeasure of the rest of the globe, the BRICS are simply implementing the terms of the agreement without the US.

    It seems what we are witnessing is a global asset grab before the implementation of SDRs, once the agreement is reached the influence of the Western financial octopus will wane, particularly the arbitrage capital of the world, London.

    The high frequency trading seems to be designed to artificially prop up the price of Western stocks and financial instruments so that once they are denominated in SDRs the West will maintain its global influence.

    Illuminating site:
    7 part series
    SDRs and the new Bretton Woods
    http://philosophyofmetrics.com/2014/01/21/sdrs-and-the-new-bretton-woods-part-one/



    • Lost on February 4, 2015 at 9:14 am

      And the whole website immediately undermines itself by claiming the US dollar had X value in 1913 and no is worth 95% less.

      Sorry, not true. A billion dollars in 1913 would barely have bought you the a computer CPU. Fewer dollars today buy much more than many would have in 1913.

      What perhaps the website should say is a dollar buys less housing and food than it did in 1913, okay true, but wages have gone up.



      • Robert Barricklow on February 4, 2015 at 5:35 pm

        Fiat money doesn’t go up in value.
        Gold does; unless the market is being usurped by manipulation.
        The tax on the FIRE sector was shifted unto labor; and its been downhill since.
        In 1913 the power “official” shifted to the international banking cartel. It has been a continuous battle to “issue” the currency. One trick in 1913 was to have the U.S. government “print” the FED(read as Federal as Federal Express) issue the currency(but not coins). A sordid history of blatant stupidity help along by a complicit jack-ass press.
        http://michael-hudson.com/

        http://ellenbrown.com/

        http://williamengdahl.com/

        All the above websites have articles and books that give the real deal details.



  2. Robert Barricklow on February 1, 2015 at 6:04 pm

    Catherine Austin Fitts Forecast/Analyses for 2015.
    (echoes some of Dr. Farrell’s worldview… )http://www.ForbiddenKnowledgeTV.com/page/26992.html

    [approx. 39 minute video]



  3. Gaia Mars-hall on February 1, 2015 at 5:12 pm

    Rocket fuel….looking forward to the booster rockets on the flip side



  4. TRM on February 1, 2015 at 2:32 pm

    Bankers? Good riddance, but good programmers? Hold on there a second. Those chaps have some serious talent. Let the bankers “suicide?” away but let’s keep those code writers alive.



  5. old97polarcat on February 1, 2015 at 2:09 pm

    Some other speculations have suggested that this dialogue is a setup to have ready to blame the approaching EU breakdown on Russia.



  6. marcos toledo on February 1, 2015 at 10:19 am

    Using Russians to setup HFT what was Wall Street dreaming or what drugs were influencing their minds. But then what can we expect from our slave labor addicted oligarchs wasn’t there a embarrassing incident involving the building a new USA embassy in Moscow using dirt cheap local labor. How about the West old friends the NAZIs could they be the men behind the curtains aka the Wizards of OZ pulling the strings and pushing the buttons. As for these bank managers date with the grim reaper knowledge can be fatal for their health including the health of their families.



  7. Aridzonan_13 on February 1, 2015 at 9:53 am

    These bizzare / volent banker deaths can be definitely classified as “over the top”. That is said to be the mark of a Ruskie Mafia style hit.. More than a few of the victims were IT types. Lending creedence to the HFT angle. Where Joe / Jane IT Mgr may have found spurrios programs running loose on their systems and started a serious investigation or two. Then out of the blue, they take a long walk off a short pier.. My belief is, the majority of these deaths were not in the club. They were mid level echelon types just doing their jobs and they no idea who or what they were dealing with. To be filed under we’ll see.



  8. Robert Barricklow on February 1, 2015 at 9:44 am

    Another interesting aspect of this question the Russians are zeroing in on is not only the economic warfare taking place in the so-called markets, but the economic espionage taking place. But then “where” do “they” interface with this “espionage product”?
    If on examines “The message is the medium” & then ties it in with/infrastructure space is an updating platform unfolding in time to handle new circumstances, encoding the relationship between buildings, or logistics. There are objects like buildings and the active forms like bits of code in software that organizes buildings. What the medium is saying, sometimes prevents us from seeing what the medium is doing.
    Information resides in the often undeclared, activities of this software-the protocols, routines, schedules, and choices it manifests in space.
    Some of the most radical changes to the globalizing world are being written not in the language of diplomacy and of law, but in these spatial, infrastructure technologies.
    Perhaps in these Free Trade Zones around the world…



    • Robert Barricklow on February 1, 2015 at 10:00 am

      Contemporary infrastructure space is the secret weapon of the most powerful people in the world precisely because it orchestrates activities that can remain unstated but are nevertheless consequential.
      These “Free Trade Zones”, operating under authorities independent from domestic laws of its host country, the zone typically provides premium utilities and a set of incentives-tax exemptions, foreign ownership of properties, streamlined customs, cheap labor, and deregulation of labor or environmental laws-to entice businesses. The world has become addicted to incentivized urbanism, and it is the site of headquatering and sheltering for most global players.



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