A well written fun slightly fictionalised reconstruction of the story of automated trading algorithms being introduced to the US stock market. Tha author does a great job in making what would seem to be an abstract story interesting by reconstructing the characters so that their dynamics and characters drive the plot on.

There are several problems with this book though even though I highly recommend it:
- The story brushes on the details that surround how the algos work and their ecosystem but does not do so systematically enough to present insight and educate a lay audience
- The author touches on the dark pool scenarios several times and in different contexts but does not give these
much context, we are left with many questions about dark pools…
- We never clearly hear that the problem is a lack of regulation despite that ultimately being the most likely author position
- I find it impossible to think that someone would write at this level of detailed reconstruction of history and not include at least a post-script that looks at these issues from a broader perspective and include a note to the edition that talks about current algos

The book feels like half a book, like the qualitative research evidence for a discussion to be made in another half.
( )

When I explained to my wife that high frequency traders were using artificial intelligence to place millions of stock trades in milliseconds, holding stocks on average for no longer than 22 seconds and effectively gaming stock markets around the world, her first reaction was "I had no idea." Her second reaction was "So what chance does the average person buying a stock have?" Computers have made the stock markets unrecognizable to us today. This book is a pretty good primer on how the changes took place and who changed the playing field, like it or not. ( )

Such an interesting read on market plumbing and the incentives of market makers. ( )

Very well written, albeit with some dramatisation which never adds anything to factual books. I already knew about dark pools but I've learned a lot about the story behind their creation. The author seems to have a poor grasp of technology but I'm willing to chalk it up to oversimplification in an effort to reach a non-technical audience. It never gets preachy which is something rare in books about economy or the stock market. It tells you the story and leaves the exclamations of indignation or awe up to you. ( )

Patterson has written a fascinating and detailed history of the rise of computers and bots in the American, and now global stock markets.

He has got potted histories of the major players in this business and shows how they wrestled power and control and most importantly money from the old guard who controlled the market before. He shows how the raise of computer generated trading has massively increased the churn of stocks, where the fastest to buy or sell is the one who makes the most money. There is a chapter on the flash crash, that took place on the 6th May 2010, where the computer started to sell and sell, causing the US stock market to drop 9% in minutes.

Most frighteningly he looks at the new computerised way that is coming AI. These machines take data from all over the web, from financial web sites to social media and make scarily accurate guesses as to the financial performance of a particular share from this feed aggregation. Not only are they demonstrating that they can outthink humans, but they can react almost instantly.

You don't expect a business book to read like a thriller, but this does. It does get technical at some points, but it is written well and is very readable. The implication behind out of control stock bots on the global economy does not bear thinking about. ( )