Introduction

Michael Lewis is a New York Times bestselling author who makes reading about non-fiction finance enjoyable. A link to his website can be found here and a link to his Wikipedia page can be found here. His most recent work called Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt was published in 2014 and famously claimed that the “stock market is rigged.” It is easy to imagine the response this accusation evoked from ordinary Americans. In fact, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced an investigation into the matter just one day after its publication. The story is a New York Times bestseller and is widely purchased and reviewed.

My book review encompasses various teachings discussed in Library and Information Studies 201: The Information Society and it will analyze Lewis’ thesis based on the supporting pieces of evidence he mentioned. These include the digitalization of the stock market, followed by investments by high frequency trading firms in computer co-location, fiber optic wiring, and algorithmic computer programming. My comprehensive analysis also delves into the complexity of front running by illustrating an example to allow the previous supporting pieces of evidence to be fully applied to Lewis’ thesis that “the market is rigged.”

As a Finance, Investment & Banking major interested in the possibility of beginning a career in trading stocks, I was initially skeptical of Lewis’ proposed thesis. However, after comprehensively analyzing his supporting evidence relative to what I have learned in Library and Information Studies 201: The Information Society, I have come to realize that Lewis effectively argues that “the market is rigged.”