We saw all of the above elements briefly come together when on February 5 the market finally did break in one spam of exploding volatility, as its topology was torn apart by various, disparate elements, resulting in virtually all of the above materializing, if only for a short time, and blowing up the VIX, which soared by the most on record, rising from the lower teens to above 50 in the span of hours, while bankrupting countless vol sellers….
….namely that the advent of algo trading and HFTs have collapsed market liquidity to the point where the market itself has become precariously brittle, prompting increasingly frequent flash crashes, and leading Goldman to conclude that, when it comes to market risk factors, “liquidity is the new leverage” in a world in which HFTs are the marginal price setters…..warning that “the rising frequency of “flash crashes” across many major markets may be an important early warning sign that something is not quite right with the current state of trading liquidity.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-22/unexpected-warning-goldman-sachs-something-not-quite-right
