Flash Boys is about a small group of Wall Street guys who figure out that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of those who control the stock market. The markets have become a lot less free and safe, and more controlled by the big Wall Street banks. Working at different firms, they come to this realization separately; but after they discover one another, the flash boys band together and set out to reform the financial markets. They all eventually come together to make sure that high frequency traders are at no advantage and aren't using the market to their complete advantage.
The characters in Flash Boys are awesome, each are completely different from what you think of when you think of “a Wall Street guy.” Several have walked away from jobs in the financial sector that paid them millions of dollars a year. From their new vantage point they investigate the big banks, the world’s stock exchanges, and high-frequency trading firms as they have never been investigated, and expose the many strange new ways that Wall Street generates profits.
The importance of the light Michael Lewis shined into the financial world shows just how corrupt our Stock Market exchange really is and how much needs to change so that everyone is working on a fair playing field. If you have any contact with the market, then this story is happening to you because even retirement plans are being attacked. In the end, Flash Boys is an uplifting read. The characters in the story are people who have somehow preserved a moral sense in an environment where you don’t get paid for that; they have institutionalized injustice and are willing to go to war to make sure everyone is playing fair.
Following the release of his book an investigation by the FBI into the "black boxes" and dark pools that he talked about in his book showed that whatever he was talking about was getting a lot of traction and of high importance. MSNBC, John Stewart, and Stephen Colbert all had interviews with him as soon as the book came out. It was the number one best seller on Amazon in under 24 hours and became so widely known that everyone knew who he was and what he stood for in a matter of hours.
The chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mary Jo White, stated in Congressional testimony on April 29, 2014 that U.S. financial markets "are not rigged" in response to a question on Lewis's book. On May 1, the SEC announced a $4.5 million fine for the New York Stock Exchange and two affiliated exchanges, on charges related to Lewis's book (high-frequency trading). The exchanges neither admitted, nor denied the charges. While Lewis can only estimate the cost to investors of the abuses, he believes it is over $5 billion per year, perhaps as much as $15 billion per year or even higher.
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