I remember (gett'in more difficult as the clock ticks) about 30 years ago, having a casual conversation(s) with a Merrill Lynch broker, his work of the style of the day; at a desk, touch tone phone at hand.
This gentleman seemed out of place for the type of work he was required to perform, being the cold phone call or an existing client call to buy this or that, per the recommendation of the company (ML). He was near the end of his career and had made a decent income for his family.
I didn't know him well at all, was not a client; but we "clicked" as to chatting about the markets in general. His view and understanding over his 30 year career is that there are "funny" things that happen in the markets, a type of "rigged"; and hopefully we as individual investors should not be affected.
Anyway, the article linked regarding the VIX, etc.; and perhaps more so to the technology of the day. Hopefully, the markets won't be in a future tizzy when a solar flare takes out 20% of the communications satellites.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/vix-manipulation-costs-investors-billions-whistle-blower-saysTake care,
Catch
Comments
“We take our regulatory responsibilities and the oversight of our markets very seriously,” Cboe, the Chicago-based exchange that controls the VIX, said in a statement. “This letter is replete with inaccurate statements, misconceptions and factual errors, including a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between the VIX Index, VIX futures and volatility” exchange-traded products. “As a result of these errors, we feel the conclusionary statements contained in this letter lack credibility.”
The heinous greed in the Markets is well known, indubitable. If a trading-tool cannot be effectively regulated, it should be prohibited. But of course, the regulators themselves have to WANT to regulate. And it doesn't help that there's some shady stuff that's allowed to go on all the time, considered to be perfectly acceptable.