Knightmare on Wall Street, Thought-provoking and Action-filled Read for The Asian Century Report

Edgar Perez, Author, The Speed Traders, and Course Director, The Speed Traders Workshop 2012, 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 City, NY, USA (September 3, 2013) — Popular Asian-news blog The Asian Century Report (http://www.TheAsianCenturyReport.com) reviewed Edgar Perez’s Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets (http://www.KnightmareonWallStreet.com), and commended the author’s “talent for distilling multiple threads of events and stitching them together into a seemingly singular narrative.” Perez, who was recently interview on Bloomberg TV by Market Makers anchors Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Shatzker, “presents the [Knight Capital] story from different angles and captures the reader’s attention despite using one or two financial terms hard to be immediately understood by the layperson.”

Knight Capital announced on August 1, 2012, it had sent an unprecedented number of erroneous orders into the market due to an error in installing new software. 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.

The Asian Century Report drew a parallel between the reactions of Chinese and American regulators to incidents that dramatically impacted their respective equity markets. In the case of China, $3.8 billion of erroneous purchase orders on August 16, 2013, led to Everbright Securities, the country’s seventh-largest brokerage by market value, to be barred from most proprietary trading, lifetime professional bans for four senior managers and the resignation of the president; the China Securities Regulatory Commission also imposed $85 million in fines and confiscation of any illegal gains. In the case pertaining to the U.S. equity markets, Knight Capital’s own $7 billion erroneous position accumulated in the first 28 minutes of trading of August 1, 2013, still goes unpunished by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In the final chapter, The Asian Century Report continues, “Perez reviews the immediate consequences of Knight’s acquisition by GETCO, a fierce competitor that participated in its rescue. There is no place for two CEOs, so [CEO Thomas] Joyce leaves, not without pocketing a $7.5 million payout. How could he take that much money when his shareholders lost almost half a billion dollars? There must be something American regulators need to learn from China; drastic and expeditious action is one of them. It is a disturbing end to a thought-provoking and action-filled read.”

The author (http://www.MrEdgarPerez.com) is widely regarded as the preeminent global expert in the specialized area of high-frequency trading. Perez has been interviewed on Sina Finance, CNBC Squawk On The Street, Bloomberg TV’s Market Makers, CNN en Español’s Dinero, FOX Business’s Countdown to the Closing Bell, CNBC Worldwide Exchange, CNBC Cash Flow, CNBC Squawk Box, BNN Business Day, CCTV China, Bankier.pl, TheStreet.com, Leaderonomics, GPW Media, Channel NewsAsia Business Tonight and Cents & Sensibilities. In addition, 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.

Perez has been engaged to present at the Council on Foreign Relations, Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University (Kiev), Quant Investment & HFT Summit APAC 2012 (Shanghai), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Washington DC), CFA Singapore, Hong Kong Securities Institute, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, University of International Business and Economics (Beijing), Hult International Business School (London and Shanghai) and Pace University (New York), among other public and private institutions. In addition, Perez has spoken at a number of global conferences, including Emerging Markets Investments Summit 2013 (Warsaw), CME Group’s Global Financial Leadership Conference 2012 (Naples Beach), Harvard Business School’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Conference (Boston), High-Frequency Trading Leaders Forum (New York, Chicago, London), MIT Sloan Investment Management Conference (Cambridge), Institutional Investor’s Global Growth Markets Forum (London), Technical Analysis Society (Singapore), TradeTech Asia (Singapore), FIXGlobal Face2Face (Seoul) and Private Equity Convention Russia, CIS & Eurasia (London).

Perez was a vice president at Citigroup, a senior consultant at IBM, and a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co. in New York City. 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. Perez resides in the New York City area and is an accomplished salsa and hustle dancer.

Media Contact:
Julia Petrova
Media Relations Coordinator
Knightmare on Wall Street
516-761-4712
info@knightmareonwallstreet.com
http://www.knightmareonwallstreet.com

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