Edgar Perez, Author, The Speed Traders, and Course Director, The Speed Traders Workshop, Introduces Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets, a Behind-the-scenes Look at Knight Capital’s 17 years of Tumultuous Existence as an Independent Company.
New York, NY, USA (December 26, 2013) — Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets, the fascinating account of what it took to elevate Knight Capital to the cusp of the retail investing revolution of the late 1990s, to struggle through booms and busts, and to bring the firm down, is now the most favorably reviewed Kindle edition book on Amazon in 2013, with an average rating of 5 out of five stars.
As reviewed by Seeking Alpha’s Sanjeev Sharma, the plot of Knightmare on Wall Street (http://www.KnightmareonWallStreet.com), revolves around the story of one large financial firm, Knight Capital Group. The author gives the details of firm’s operations and depicts the efforts and ambitions driving the firm’s success. He gives a minute by minute detail of the famous incident and explains the reasons and events behind it.
“The company was nearly bankrupt after it gave mistaken U.S. equity orders due to an improperly installed software that later malfunctioned. The erroneous trading caused volume to dramatically spike and prices to wrongly change in more than a hundred securities listed on the U.S. stock exchanges. Knight could avoid bankruptcy as six Wall Street firms, GETCO, Blackstone, Jefferies, Stephens, Stifel Financial and TD Ameritrade, provided a capital infusion for its solvency after the mistake. The author’s style is imaginative, and keeps the reader’s interest alive throughout the book. It will surely be interesting and useful, particularly for those who follow or are interested in the world of finance. I think the book is a great read, and would recommend it.”
The firm, founded by Kenneth Pasternak and Walter Raquet in 1995, had seen its fortunes change as U.S. regulators made a series of changes in the structure of financial markets and computers were progressively expanding their share of trading. The Flash Crash, the infamous 1,000 point drop of the DJIA on May 6, 2010 (the largest one-day point decline in history), illustrated how market structure problems could almost instantaneously cascade from one market participant to the rest.
Thomas Joyce, CEO of Knight Capital since 2002 and an unapologetic advocate of electronic trading, had been scornful of those companies that struggled to keep up with ever-changing stock markets. So it was certainly shocking that at 9:30 A.M. on August 1, 2012, right after the markets opened for the day, Knight Capital began issuing an unprecedented number of erroneous orders into the market, due to an error in installing new software. No rogue trader or regulatory change; operational risk was passing the bill to Knight Capital and becoming the biggest risk in the financial markets.
Knight Capital announced later a staggering loss of $440 million. What followed after this shocking announcement were several rounds of desperate conversations with a number of vulture players who had smelled opportunity and were readying themselves to pick up bargain-priced pieces. On August 6, 2012, Joyce confirmed that Knight Capital had struck a deal with Jefferies, TD Ameritrade, Blackstone, GETCO, Stephens, and Stifel Financial, staving off collapse days after the trading mishap.
While Knight Capital was back in the game, its limping recovery quickly prompted hungry competitors to bid for the entire company. On December 19, 2012, the board decided to accept an acquisition proposal from GETCO rather than Virtu Financial. For GETCO, acquiring Knight Capital represented a gigantic fast forward step. For Knight Capital, it was the end of its wild ride as an independent entity.
Mr. Perez, the author, is widely regarded as the preeminent global expert in the specialized area of high-frequency trading. He is author of The Speed Traders, An Insider’s Look at the New High-Frequency Trading Phenomenon That is Transforming the Investing World, published in English by McGraw-Hill Inc. (2011), Published in Mandarin by China Financial Publishing House (2012), and Investasi Super Kilat: Pandangan Orang dalam tentang Fenomena Baru Frekuensi Tinggi yang Mentransformasi Dunia Investasi, published in Bahasa Indonesia by Kompas Gramedia (2012). Mr. Perez is course director of The Speed Traders Workshop, How High Frequency Traders Leverage Profitable Strategies to Find Alpha in Equities, Options, Futures and FX (Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Warsaw, Kiev, New York, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai). He contributes to China’s International Finance News and Sina Finance and The New York Times.
Mr. Perez has been interviewed on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Worldwide Exchange, Cash Flow and Squawk Box, FOX BUSINESS’s Countdown to the Closing Bell and After the Bell, Bloomberg TV’s Market Makers, CNN en Español’s Dinero, Sina Finance, BNN’s Business Day, CCTV China, Bankier.pl, TheStreet.com, Leaderonomics, GPW Media, Channel NewsAsia’s Business Tonight and Cents & Sensibilities. In addition, Mr. Perez has been globally featured on FXFactor, Columbia Business, OpenMarkets, Sohu, News.Sina.com, Yicai, eastmoney, Caijing, ETF88.com, 360doc, AH Radio, CNFOL.com, CITICS Futures, Tongxin Securities, ZhiCheng.com, CBNweek.com, Caixin, Futures Daily, Xinhua, CBN Newswire, Chinese Financial News, ifeng.com, International Finance News, hexun.com, Finance.QQ.com, Finance.Sina.com, The Korea Times, The Korea Herald, The Star, The Malaysian Insider, BMF 89.9, iMoney Hong Kong, CNBC, Bloomberg Hedge Fund Brief, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Valor Econômico, FIXGlobal Trading, TODAY Online, Oriental Daily News and Business Times.
Mr. Perez was a vice president at Citigroup, a senior consultant at IBM, and a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co., the American global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to senior management; the firm serves as an adviser to businesses, governments, and institutions around the world. McKinsey is widely considered to be the most prestigious management consulting firm in the world, with over 100 offices in 60 countries.
Mr. Perez has an undergraduate degree from Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, Lima, Peru (1994), a Master of Administration from Universidad ESAN, Lima, Peru (1997) and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School, New York, with a dual major in Finance and Management (2002). He belongs to the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society. Mr. Perez resides in the New York City area and is an accomplished salsa and hustle dancer.
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Knightmare on Wall Street
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