Dear HFT, Please Explain This Back to Table Of Contents On August 25, 2011 at 15:45:48, in a one second period of time, there were more than 10,000 quotes and exactly zero trades in DELL. Close inspection of these quotes reveals something very disturbing. This cannot be dismissed as a computer problem or glitch. This can't be explained as stupidity or some oversight. It is not pinging for hidden liquidity. And it's certainly not price discovery. As far as we can tell, it's not adding liquidity or narrowing the bid/ask spread. What caused this blast of 10,000 quotes in DELL appears deliberate. Of the 10,000 quotes, the bid and ask prices remain the same. The bid size also remains constant except for one change after the first 7,000 or so quotes. The only real variation is the ask size. Not a simple 2 step variation, but one that repeats in a mathematical pattern with a long cycle. This makes it difficult to detect, but it also confirms that it must be emanating from a single source. There are approximately 4,000 stocks that quote during active trading. Which means 40 million quotes/second if just one of the 9 exchanges allow this nonsense to spread to all 4,000 symbols. You would need 40 gigabits per second of bandwidth to receive data at that rate. Unfortunately, we think it's just a matter of time, because events like this one in Dell are no longer isolated or rare. And it doesn't look like there are any grown-ups in charge.  DELL - Dell, Price and Sizes Zoom in of sequence: Inquiries: pr@nanex.net Publication Date: 08/25/2011 http://www.nanex.net This report and all material shown on this website is published by Nanex, LLC and may not be reproduced, disseminated, or distributed, in part or in whole, by any means, outside of the recipient's organization without express written authorization from Nanex. It is a violation of federal copyright law to reproduce all or part of this publication or its contents by any means. This material does not constitute a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any securities or investments. The opinions expressed herein are based on publicly available information and are considered reliable. However, Nanex makes NO WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS OF ANY SORT with respect to this report. Any person using this material does so solely at their own risk and Nanex and/or its employees shall be under no liability whatsoever in any respect thereof.