Back on March 21, before the release of Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys and before the infamous 60 Minutes interview, when Goldman COO Gary Cohn wrote his infamous WSJ Op-ed bashing HFT, it was clear that something was afoot. That something became promptly clear when it was revealed that Goldman is among the core backers of the pseudo dark-pool IEX exchange popularized as the protagonist in Flash Boys, and juxtaposed to the frontrunning, and faceless, HFT antagonist that Lewis maanged to demonize so well in the span of a few hundred pages, he promptly provoked a renewed investigation by the FBI, the SEC and DOJ into HFT.
A few days later, the shocker became a double whammy when Goldman announced that in addition to turning its back on HFT which had served it so well for years, the firm would also say goodbye to the NYSE and its designated market maker post, the last remaining legacy of its $6.5 billion Spear Ledds & Kellogg acquisition from 2000. That Goldman was asking mere pennies on the dollar for the residual assets also showed just how “highly” Goldman valued said legacy operation.
This is what we said at the time of the announcement:
… What is unexpected, is the complete transformation Goldman has undergone in in the past several weeks:Â first Goldman, the bank that everyone else on Wall Street always imitates, waving goodbye to HFT, and now departing the NYSE?
When the world’s most intelligent FDIC-backed hedge fund, pardon, bank says the current market structure is no longer necessary to Goldman, people notice, and promptly imitate.
To be sure – if this is not indicative of a major storm coming for traditional “lit” market structure (as opposed to dark pools of which IEX, until recently, was one and where Goldman has nearly complete dominance with Sigma X), we don’t know what is.
Moments ago we got the third and final “shocker” in this series of stunning disclosures by Goldman, this time involving Goldman’s own “unlit” venue – one involving its own Dark Pool – the infamous, and market dominant Sigma X, which according to the WSJ, is about to be shut down!
