Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

Michael Lewis

Mar 2014 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this ebook

#1 New York Times Bestseller — With a new Afterword

"Guaranteed to make blood boil." —Janet Maslin, New York Times

In Michael Lewis's game-changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders. They band together—some of them walking away from seven-figure salaries—to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits. If you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you.

Ratings and reviews

Read the book cover to cover in two days because like many others I trade stocks and have heard about HFT but didn't know the full extent nor who allowed this to occur, the banks. Thanks to Senator Perdue from Georgia who recommend this book in an interview. When he's done with his two term limit in Georgia please come up to Colorado, we need a businessman of his caliber. The details explained between pages ~80-90 left me wishing i was taking notes because of the complexity described. Additionally, as I read the section describing whether or not to disclose if brokers honored clients wishes to go to IEX, I thought this was a little more detail than needed but now, looking back I realize how important the issue is for me. The pay-scales are just staggering. --Ross

Lewis is a gifted storyteller, managing to weave a coherent narrative out of the details of an obscure subject. He also doesn't shy away from the technical details of network latency, which is refreshing for a book targeted at the mainstream. However, the story is mainly told from the point of view of Brad Katsuyama, ex-Royal Bank of Canada, and his partners, who are trying to start the Investors' Exchange, a new stock exchange free of order types meant primarily for high frequency traders. Lewis mentions in the text that this won't be the definitive history of the HFT phenomenon, and that the people at the forefront of HFT firms have limited incentives to talk about their work in any detail. Even so, this book necessarily only scratches the surface of what's going on in the stock market. At 280 pages, it's a great, quick read here in the first half of 2014, but it will surely be usurped by later writers who will draw from a larger variety of sources.

The problem is that he sets up the same scheme he supposedly wants to eradicate, because an eye for an eye or some such. There's an xkcd strip about this (see Standards). This is my first Lewis book and I'm utterly disappointed, granted I've heard from others that this is far from his best work. He picked a team, sets up the scene Mission Impossible style and rides hard for them til the end...but don't worry, if you're trading, you're probably paying a stupid amount of fees through your transactions anyway.

About the author

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.