Book Week: Broken Markets

With one more month of summer to go, why not spend it catching up on some of the best financial books of the season?  This is Book Week on TRB, a new one each day that you may have missed and should definitely buy/download.

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I hit up a cocktail party on the rooftop of the Gramercy Park Hotel earlier this summer and in attendance were a who’s who of financial media stars, reporters and producers – Fox Biz, CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters all were there.  And it’s no surprise, the market’s become more and more erratic over the years and the media needs guests who can explain what’s happening to their wider audience.  And no one has a better handle on today’s market structure than my friends Joe Saluzzi and Sal Arnuk of Themis Trading.  They are the go-to guys when anchors and bookers and journalists need an expert – and for good reason: They’ve watched the entire Mechagodzilla Trade-a-saurus Rex evolve from the very beginning.

Joe and Sal made their bones at Instinet, one of the pioneers of high tech trading and ECN activities.  They’ve since witnessed a laundry list of well-intentioned (and sometimes nefarious) decisions by the exchanges, regulators and policymakers that have led to what they term a hollowed-out stock market, a de facto kleptocracy wherein only the fast survive and software code has replaced both intuition and common sense.

And so if you plan to stick around in these market’s, you might want to make yourself familiar with the new laws of the jungle.  In Broken Markets, Joe and Sal bring us through the (d)evolution of our current state complete with some astounding revelations along the way.  For instance, did you know that a 1994 research paper about how market makers were consciously not trading on odd eighths (1/8, 3/8, 5/8, 7/8) led to some of the most destructive policy decisions ever made for our equities markets? There’s so much juicy stuff in here I found myself reading it with a highlighter.

Anyone trading, investing, regulating or learning about markets should buy this book immediately.  You may not agree with Sal and Joe’s contention  – that the exchanges have abandoned their original purpose of maintaining orderly markets for America – but I guarantee you’ll have your eyes opened.

Buy It Here:

Broken Markets (Hardcover)

Broken Markets (Kindle)

And follow the guys on the Twitter:

Follow Joe Saluzzi on Twitter

Follow Sal Arnuk on Twitter