FWIW, looking at those graphs, it does appear that a lot of the extraneous action was happening right on the edge of the inside bid/ask.
Additionally, your broker starts getting annoyed at you when your fill rate drops below 0.5% or so. If you DOSed the market, you wouldn't even be in that ballpark.
That's definitely true, and I'm sure it would be a serious problem with doing anything of this nature.
Is there always a middleman that cares about what quotes you're pushing through, though, or do some people have closer connections that wouldn't be watched very closely?
Some larger funds become a broker/dealer, so they can cut their brokers out of the loop. I really doubt that anyone big enough to do that would be willing to risk their business on a DOS attack, however.
I fully agree that it's possible to do. I just find other explanations, like badly written algorithms, much more plausible.
Additionally, your broker starts getting annoyed at you when your fill rate drops below 0.5% or so. If you DOSed the market, you wouldn't even be in that ballpark.
That's definitely true, and I'm sure it would be a serious problem with doing anything of this nature.
Is there always a middleman that cares about what quotes you're pushing through, though, or do some people have closer connections that wouldn't be watched very closely?