Decepticon Tradebots

The hottest toys for grownup investors this holiday season will be the Decepticon Tradebots.  Co-located servers on the NYSE floor sold separately…Collect ’em All!

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Flash-N-Dash – Positions himself between investor buy and sell orders and the legitimate open market, effectively getting a first look and right of refusal to take the other side of the trade.  Acts as a tax on market participants and a de facto extra layer of market-making.  Changes color in warm water.

StopDropper – Sniffs out all outstanding stop loss and stop limit orders, triggering them with short sales, covering once the stock has been drilled lower.  Guaranteed profits await, also transforms into a dump truck.

Circuitbreaker – Bangs down stocks that are already off 5%, thus creating a sense of panic.  Can conduct stair-step sell and buy routines to give off the appearance of multiple large traders operating in a specific security.  Check out his kung-fu grip!

The Vanisher – His signature fighting style is the maintaining of steady trading in securities until volatility hits.  At this point, he goes into shut down mode, awaiting the free fall that destroys his legitimate market participant rivals.

DarkShark – Predator of the Dark Pools in which more volume than ever before is happening away from published execution.  Swims around amongst the clandestine order flow, picking off asset managers and mutual fund slow money whenever it slips up and presents itself.  

Churn-obyl – Slams the bid and ask repeatedly with phantom orders that are cancelled at a rate of 9 to 1.  This churning gives off the appearance of actual activity, sucking in unsuspecting investors so that the market-order feeding frenzy can begin.

Sizeburner – Can map orders so that even a 300 share trade can be linked to millions of shares hiding behind it.  Blows up the intentions of even the most cautious institutional buyers and sellers, usually works in concert with the DarkShark.  Batteries not included.