As Wall Street pours billions into high-speed trading platforms – along with big salaries for top software developers – there is a continual question of whether the regulators can keep up.
SEC chairman Mary Jo White insists it can, saying in January:
This is not your father’s SEC – or your mother’s or even your older brother or sister’s. In this rapidly changing environment, we must stay on top of advances in technology.
The SEC recently caught two fraudsters by switching to a sophisticated, technology-based strategy that allowed them to focus on the traders themselves rather than following the movement of the stocks. Known as parallel trading, the tactic is one of several tech-focused methods the SEC is deploying to keep pace with high-speed traders and fast-growing markets.
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