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kahn_johnson 's review for:
Flash Boys
by Michael Lewis
Now, I love a Michael Lewis book - been a fan since picking up The Big Short. He has a knack for making the complicated seem simple and understand.
And it's not just finance that he can throw the spotlight on (even if that's where he's made his name), this is the man who gave us Moneyball and The Blindside after all.
Without fail, he has managed to write books that are engaging and enthralling.
Until now.
Having been introduced to the guys who set about building the IEX exchange in a bid to level the stock market playing field, Lewis attempts to tell the tale of how IEX came into being.
In doing so, he has to not only introduce you to the various players in the game - all of whom took the long route to Wall Street it seems - but also to the world of High Frequency Traders, the boys and girls who use technology to get an edge in the murky world of the stock exchange.
In essence, they use every last nanosecond of time available to them to ensure they buy the stock before you do, and then sell it to you and an inflated price, pocketing the difference.
And it's this practice that the IEX exchange wanted to, if not end, then at least curtail.
That's the simple version.
Lewis decided to complicate it.
In doing so, it feels like he may have confused himself, because Flash Boys lacks his trademark clarity.
From the plan to lay new fibre optic cables to a man wrongly arrested for stealing code when he changed jobs, there's a lot on information here that could have been cut back on, allowing the focus of the story to actually be the HFT lot who have been ripping people off for years. Legally, too.
Obviously, none of the HFT firms would talk to Lewis, hence this one-sided look at the story, dealing only with those trying to tackle it from the outside (and, by default, not really grasping what happens on the inside).
And then we get to the final chapter.
Now, either this was written by someone else or Lewis forgot what he was talking about because it not only fails to provide any conclusions it goes off at such a tangent i can't be sure it's not from a different book.
Somewhere in here, is a fascinating tale of another great Wall Street scam.
This isn't it though.
And it's not just finance that he can throw the spotlight on (even if that's where he's made his name), this is the man who gave us Moneyball and The Blindside after all.
Without fail, he has managed to write books that are engaging and enthralling.
Until now.
Having been introduced to the guys who set about building the IEX exchange in a bid to level the stock market playing field, Lewis attempts to tell the tale of how IEX came into being.
In doing so, he has to not only introduce you to the various players in the game - all of whom took the long route to Wall Street it seems - but also to the world of High Frequency Traders, the boys and girls who use technology to get an edge in the murky world of the stock exchange.
In essence, they use every last nanosecond of time available to them to ensure they buy the stock before you do, and then sell it to you and an inflated price, pocketing the difference.
And it's this practice that the IEX exchange wanted to, if not end, then at least curtail.
That's the simple version.
Lewis decided to complicate it.
In doing so, it feels like he may have confused himself, because Flash Boys lacks his trademark clarity.
From the plan to lay new fibre optic cables to a man wrongly arrested for stealing code when he changed jobs, there's a lot on information here that could have been cut back on, allowing the focus of the story to actually be the HFT lot who have been ripping people off for years. Legally, too.
Obviously, none of the HFT firms would talk to Lewis, hence this one-sided look at the story, dealing only with those trying to tackle it from the outside (and, by default, not really grasping what happens on the inside).
And then we get to the final chapter.
Now, either this was written by someone else or Lewis forgot what he was talking about because it not only fails to provide any conclusions it goes off at such a tangent i can't be sure it's not from a different book.
Somewhere in here, is a fascinating tale of another great Wall Street scam.
This isn't it though.