Jane Street barred from Indian markets as regulator freezes $566M

Having formerly worked for an NYSE Specialist firm the role of market making is incredibly important, but many large-scale HFTs today operate in ways that either stretch the legal boundaries or exploit regulatory gaps. Many practices arguably amount to market manipulation in spirit, even if technically legal. Candidly, the regulators are either too lazy, stupid, ill equipped or uninterested to do anything about it.

SEBI’s bold move, at the expense of appearing unfriendly to foreign institutions, is commendable. I really hope that the SEC will wake up from its slumber and start investigating the tactics used by Citadel and its kind.

You can think “there should be a law” without endorsing the reckless and inconsistent ways that Indian regulatory agencies make up laws.

No, India does not view things exactly the same way the west does re: the rule of law vs. institutional power. The regulator has broad authority to stop market manipulation and support from the public that we do not want HFT style manipulation skimming money from everyone else in our markets. SEBI does not need to wait for a precisely worded law for every single type of market manipulation that will take years to pass and then be sidestepped in months on some technicality. They stopped bad activity quickly only because they have some actual power to make judgements and enforce them.

The SEC has similar autonomy in regulating that you describe. Congress does not legislate the rules that the SEC holds firms to.