Market Structure Didn’t Cause Volatility – At Least Not This Time

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin recently blamed high frequency trading and the Volcker Rule for recent volatility in the markets.  While I love to see high ranking government officials talking about market structure, his statements felt surprisingly uninformed coming from someone who has spent their entire life on Wall Street.  Today I discussed this on Bloomberg TV, trying to explain that firstly, he was wrong, and then that HFT and the Vockler Rule are two very different things with two very different impacts on the market (neither of which, by the way, caused recent market volatility.  Unfortunately they never posted the video, so this post will have to live with just some screen shots and my description of the events!