The SEC continues their hands off approach to financial markets aside from the occasional capital raising adventure masked as enforcement designed to appease the Mom and Pop public.  Today there was yet another shining example of how our regulators have failed to protect market participants as Hannon Armstrong ($HASI) was clipped from $11 to $4.5 at 9:36:56.500 AM EST.  Thanks to the myriad of order-types available to traders from all of the 13 lit exchanges, HASI traded at $10.85 and $4.5 in a beautifully swinging manner inside a 500 millisecond window (it takes the x-bar human being 400 ms to blink).  Circuit breakers, kill switches, and the $2MN SEC MIDAS system won’t help you.  Join the Sang Lucci chat and get involved to learn about the order types that allow this to happen and the ways you can protect yourself.  Be an active trader, not passive.

Via NANEX (to view larger image right click and choose view image):

1. HASI – Showing trades color coded by exchange.

2. HASI – Showing trades color coded by exchange. Zoom 1.

3. HASI – Showing trades color coded by exchange. Zoom 2.