Is A Case Of Quant Trading Sabotage About To Destroy Goldman Sachs

Back-up: This week’s NYSE Program Trading report was very odd: not only because program trading hit 48.6% of all NYSE trading, a record high at least since the NYSE has kept tabs on this data, and a datapoint which in itself was startling enough to cause some serious red flags as I jaunt from village to village in what little is left of Europe’s bison country, but what was shocking was the disappearance of the #1 mainstay of complete trading domination (i.e., Goldman Sachs) from not just the aforementioned #1 spot, but the entire complete list. In other words: Goldman went from 1st to N/A in one week.

Even more odd, this "disappearance" comes hot on the heels of what Zero Hedge reported could be potentially a major change to the way the NYSE provides its weekly program trading report. Of course, Ray over at the NYSE immediately replied to Zero Hedge that all was going to be same as always … Odd, maybe he meant that all is back to normal except the reporting of Goldman’s trades. Either way, it might very well be time for proactive readers to again contact the two employees publicly disclosed by the NYSE as lead-contacts on the issue.  Readers will recall that it was these same two who were previously steadfastly assuring anyone who would listen that there would be no change at all in data reporting.

Robert Airo, Senior Vice President, NYSE Euronext at (212) 656-5663 or
Aleksandra Radakovic, Vice President, NYSE Regulation at (212) 656-4144

Alas, the just released weekly data proves that either theirs was a material misrepresentation of facts, or Goldman simply suddenly decided to stop transacting with the NYSE, or, what would be even more sinister, Goldman notified the NYSE to scrap all their trading data from the prior week. Why would they do that?

Goint back to Matt Goldstein’s story. In a nutshell, on Friday, one Sergey Aleynikov was arrested at Newark airport by FBI agents, as he was coming back from a trip to Chicago (maybe visiting his new employer), on what are basically industrial espionage charges. Sergey, or Serge as his Linked-In account identifies him, was VP of equity strategy over at 85 Broad (or maybe 1 New York Plaza, his detailed Bloomberg Bio page has disappeared) had the following responsibilities at Goldman Sachs according to Linked-In:

• Lead development of a distributed real-time co-located high-frequency trading (HFT) platform.The main objective was to engineer a very low latency (microseconds) event-driven market data processing, strategy, and order submission engine. The system was obtaining multicast market data from Nasdaq, Arca/NYSE, CME and running trading algorithms with low latency requirements responsive to changes in market conditions.
• Implemented a real-time monitoring solution for the distributed trading system using a combination of technologies (SNMP, Erlang/OTP, boost, ACE, TibcoRV, real-time distributed replicated database, etc) to monitor load and health of trading processes in the mother-ship and co-located sites so that trading decisions can be prioritized based on congestion and queuing delays.
• Responsible for development of real-time market feed handlers, order processing engines and trading tools at a Quantitative Equity Trading revenue-making HFT desk.

If the allegations are true, it looks like Goldman’s hi-fi quant trading desk was thoroughly penetrated by a "spy", and as readers will recall, Serge(y)’s description of his job duties mirrors what Mr. Ed Canaday conveniently provided to Zero Hedge as a description of Goldman’s SLP program. (Sources connected with the office of the United States Attorney have confirmed to Zero Hedge that Aleynikov was at one time or another a Goldman employee.").

The plot thickens: per FBI agent Michael McSwain’s sworn deposition, Sergey quit a firm described as "Financial Institution" in the affidavit, which according to circumstantial evidence and according to Goldstein is none other than Goldman Sachs, on June 5, at that time earning $400,000 annually. As Matt reports, he proceeded to move to a Chicago firm engaged in "high volume automated trading" where he would make 3x his $400k salary (Hey Getco, is it time for a formal release at least denying you guys had anything to do with this, cause if you did it might not look that hot. No matter, we have reached out to our sources in law enforcement to confirm or deny Getco’s, and Goldman’s, involvement: once we get a response we will immediately advise our readers).

In the 5 days immediately preceeding his departure from "Financial Institution" (potentially GS), Sergey allegedly downloaded 32 megs of ultra top-secret quant trading proprietary code, that, according to Special Agent McSwain’s affidavit, he then proceeded to encrypt and upload to a website in Germany, with a UK owner. One can only imagine the value of this "code" not only to Goldman but to the highest bidder. After all, from the affidavit: "certain features of the [code], such as speed and efficiency by which it obtains and processes market data, gives the Financial Institution a competitive advantage among other firms that also engage in high-volume automated trading.The Financial Institution further believes that, if competing firms were to obtain the [code] and use its features, the Financial Institution’s ability to profit from the [code]’s speed and efficiency would be significantly diminished." Needless to say, many others are now also likely hot on the trail of the code.

What is probably most notable, in less than a month since Sergey’s departure from [Goldman?], the FBI was summoned to task and the alleged saboteur was arrested and promptly gagged: if anyone is amazed by the unprecedented speed of this investigative process, you are not alone. If only the FBI were to tackle cases of national security and loss of life with the same speed and precision as they confront presumed high-frequency program trading industrial espionage cases… especially those that allegedly involve Goldman Sachs.

Now the real question here is, does [GS?] feel lucky? Because the code has supposedly been in the hands of an outsider for over a month, one might suspect that anyone who wanted to has had ample opportunity – if the holder(s) wished to sell… Would that have anything to do with the even weirder than usual market action over the past 2-3 weeks: after all it is the very Goldman Sachs (which may or may not be the target of this program trading industrial espionage) which is the primary SLP on the world’s biggest stock exchange.

Another major question: do Goldman and the NYSE not have a fiduciary responsibility to announce to both shareholders and any interested parties if there has been a major security breach in their trading operations? Certainly this seems like a material piece of information: given that program trading accounted for 49% of all NYSE trading last week, and Goldman as recently as one week ago represented about 60% of all principal program trading, will this be called an issue threatening the National Security of the United States. Shouldn’t all market participants be aware that there is some rogue code in cyberspace that can be abused by the highest bidder, who very likely will not be interested in proving the efficient market hypothesis?  What will happened when said bidder goes about trying to front run none other than the "Financial Institution" [GS]?

The complete affidavit can be downloaded from this post here, and is also provided Scribed below as this could (and likely should) become a matter of National Security. Zero Hedge will closely monitor this situation from the European hinterland and provide updates as they come. For really interested readers, we recommend tracking any potentially new developments on the forums and message boards over at Wilmott.

Lastly, a quick question to lawyers among our readers: what if any is the likelihood that Goldman will be forced to provide associated discovery if this were to become an extended legal case?

major hat tip Matt Goldstein of Reuters