This should be a must see for all investors. And to think this is just one factor of rigged markets…besides naked shorting, dark pools, leverage, derivatives etc.

Visualizing Market Topology: Video Of Real-Time Exchange Routing: Zero Hedge

Shortly we will present a take on Nanex most recent observations on the broken equity markets, the gist of which is that the key premise behind Reg NMS: the NBBO (National Best Bid and Offer) principle which requires brokers to execute customer trades at the best available ask price when buying securities, and the best available bid price when selling securities, is now flagrantly ignored and is being abused. This is due to the encroachment of HFT which makes enforcement of NBBO regulations virtually impossible. This finding should be enough to discredit the whole premise of fair and efficient markets. And while we will discuss this more in depth shortly, below we wanted to present a stunning visualization of what really happens each and every second in our massively fragmented markets.

For complete article and videos see:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/visualizing-market-topology-video-real-time-exchange-routing