A review by mschlat
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis

4.0

Of Lewis's financial works, I liked this much more than Boomerang, but it wasn't up to the greatness of the The Big Short. The story focuses on the fight against the predation of high frequency trading --- the practice of millisecond reactions to trade information to make profits almost totally without risk. The evil of the practice (as depicted by Lewis) is that investors can no longer see where and how their trades are being made and may miss that they are actually paying more than they intended (since high frequency traders interrupt their transactions). Or it's something like that. As usual with Lewis, I get the gist and about 70% of the details and wish I had a primer for the other 30%.

A great read on the gulf between the tech folks (who program the Wall Street computers) and the traders and salespeople who carry out the finances. Lewis hits heavily the point that the technology that was meant to simplify stock trading has also introduced opportunities for profit (and stock manipulation) that no one foresaw.