The list of federal and state agencies investigating the practice of high-frequency trading continues to grow.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder told a House panel on Friday that the Justice Department was investigating high-frequency trading “to determine whether it violates insider trading laws.†The disclosure from Mr. Holder came the same week that Michael Lewis’s new book, “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt,†became the talk of Wall Street.
Earlier this week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission confirmed their own continuing investigations. Regulators in New York State have a separate inquiry.
Appearing on CNBC on Friday, James B. Stewart, a columnist for The New York Times, noted that regulators’ interest in high-speed trading comes as the fourth anniversary approaches of the “flash crash,†when the Dow Jones industrial average fell almost 1,000 points in minutes and rapidly recovered. “We still don’t understand what happened there,†Mr. Stewart said. “I find that very, very frustrating.â€
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 4, 2014
An earlier version of this post gave an incorrect middle initial for the attorney general. He is Eric H. Holder, not Eric B. Holder.
