April 2, 2019
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, announced today that he would soon release a proposal to eliminate massive tax breaks enjoyed by the wealthy on their capital gains income. If successful, the proposal would ensure that income from wealth is taxed just like income from work.
His plan, which he has promised to flesh out in a white paper in the coming weeks, would tax the appreciation of assets owned by the very wealthy as income each year, an approach known as mark-to-market taxation. It would also subject that income to ordinary tax rates rather than special, lower income tax rates that apply to capital gains.
https://itep.org/sweeping-reform-would-tax-capital-gains-like-ordinary-income/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-democrat-proposes-annual-tax-on-unrealized-capital-gains-11554217383
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @09:46PM (2 children)
Just to recap: HFT is when you place an order to buy a stock, they receive your order and in the time between ordering and buying they buy the same stock (lower than your price, if they can) and sell it to you (higher if they can). If they can't make this work, they cancel their order and fulfill your order on the open market.
It's pure, out-and-out creaming off profit at your expense.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arslan on Sunday April 07 2019, @10:59PM (1 child)
You know they call it front-running in the a lot of non-HFT places and is a regulated offense, yet somehow I've also been curious why HFT folks have no such limitations.
Some folks claims it provides liquidity, but will it? In a market downturn where everyone is holding on to cash, will it provide liquidity if it has no traffic volume to leech off of? It can certainly boost liquidity when there's flow but in on itself I don't think it actually provides 1st order liquidity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by toddestan on Monday April 08 2019, @03:59AM
The HFT firms only make a move when they have both a buyer and a seller lined up and it's advantageous to them to act as a middle man. They don't hold onto any stock long term, just long enough for them to complete the transaction which can be as fast as a fraction of a second. As such they provide absolutely zero liquidity, as they simply won't act at all if there isn't already a buyer and a seller.
They provide the illusion of providing liquidity as they do many transactions, both as a buyer and seller. But that illusion can go poof in an instant.