Wall Street's 'Meritocracy' A Big Lie: Big Companies With High Speed Investment Software Beat Everybody Else To The Punch In Rigged Game

Wall Street - A Lot of Bull. (Photo by Nathaniel Zumbach)

By Nick Baker and Sam Mamudi
The U.S. stock market is a rigged game where high-frequency traders with advanced computers make tens of billions of dollars by jumping in front of investors, according to author Michael Lewis, who spent the past year researching the topic for his new book “Flash Boys.”

While speed traders’ strategies, developed over the past decade with help from exchanges, are legal, “it’s just nuts” that they’re allowed, Lewis said during an interview televised today on CBS Corp.’s “60 Minutes.”

The tactics are too complicated for individual investors to understand, he said. “The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism, is rigged,” Lewis, whose books “Liar’s Poker” and “The Big Short” highlighted Wall Street excesses, said during the interview. The new book comes out tomorrow.

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