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Secrets of the Knight Revealed at Book Launch Party in New York City for Knightmare on Wall Street

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Edgar Perez, Author, The Speed Traders, and Course Director, The Speed Traders Workshop, Proudly 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 (August 13, 2013) — A book launch party is planned in New York City for Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets. Now exclusively available at http://www.KnightmareonWallStreet.com, Knightmare on Wall Street provides a 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, to end up ultimately being ignominiously bought up by a competitor.

Edgar Perez, the celebrated author of The Speed Traders (http://www.TheSpeedTraders.com) and global speaker on the topics of high-frequency trading (HFT) and investing, brings again a masterpiece for the trading and investing class with this thrilling minute-by-minute account of the terrifying hours following its August 1, 2012 trading debacle, with news-breaking research regarding Knight Capital’s 17 years of tumultuous existence as an independent company.

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.

Perez (http://www.MrEdgarPerez.com) 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). 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 The New York Times and China’s International Finance News and Sina Finance.

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

Business

Heroes and Villains Populate Knightmare on Wall Street Book as Captured by Perez’s Keen Insight

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Edgar Perez, Author, The Speed Traders, and Course Director, The Speed Traders Workshop 2012, Proudly 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 (August 2, 2013) — “Ever since the Knight Capital trading disaster broke in August 1, 2012, investors and traders have been morbidly fascinated by the incident. How had so sophisticated a company managed to burn though $440 million in a bit more than half an hour? How could the firm endure the bleeding for what amounted to years in electronic trading? Some of us could imagine ourselves among the members of the management team in those tragic minutes; others found an unimaginable relief in watching the financial tragedy unfolds in front of their eyes and not inside their own firms.” That’s how UltraHighFrequencyTrading.com kicks off its review of Edgar Perez’s latest title, Knightmare on Wall Street, The Rise and Fall of Knight Capital and the Biggest Risk for Financial Markets, now exclusively available at http://www.KnightmareonWallStreet.com.

The editors at UltraHighFrequencyTrading.com praise Knightmare on Wall Street’s “superlative account of the coming-of-age of high frequency trading, and the definitive chronicle of Knight Capital’s impressive ascendancy and lightning toppling.” They continue: “Perez takes the reader on a riveting journey while providing a record of verbatim verbal exchanges between the major players, as their personalities, decisions, ambitions and indecisions send ripples throughout the financial markets. Heroes, villains and human fallibility populate this true story as captured by the author’s keen insight and imaginative presentation.”

“Perez’s story holds us not because of the absorbing details of the incident, but because of its human dimension. ‘Knightmare on Wall Street’ begins by reconstructing the events of that grim morning during which the firm begun spewing orders and scaring traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on the day of the launch of the Retail Liquidity Program. Top managers, including Steven Sadoff and Michael Tobin, failed to act decisively in the absence of their CEO. Perez clearly does not believe that they were ultimate responsible in the extraordinary failure. But in Perez’s telling, they should have known better, much better.”

“Perez takes the reader on a riveting ride through trading rooms where the personalities of the major players are revealed. ‘Knightmare on Wall Street’ is certain to become a seminal classic among the pertinent Wall Street literature, alongside such heavyweight tomes as Barbarians at the Gate, Liar’s Poker, When Genius Failed and Den of Thieves. It is not merely a compelling and essential text for anyone who wishes to comprehend the climate of algorithmic trading, or anyone who wants to gain insight into the future evolution of financial markets and its discontents. This is a highly recommended read for anyone desiring the inside scoop about today’s electronic and high-frequency trading.”

Perez 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). 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 The New York Times and China’s International Finance News and Sina Finance.

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