throwaway0009

> Look I'm in the industry.

So you’re the only person on HN who works in finance?

Chat rooms are used as a way to communicate with clients. Clients can inquire about prices and submit orders through chat. They're also used to share market commentary within banks. It's not allowed to have chats between traders at different banks now.

> The people manning the prop desks in these institutions

The Volcker Rule (part of Dodd-Frank) prohibits prop trading at banks (with few exceptions). The big banks have been actively discouraging it as well, changing comp structures to avoid rewarding prop trading.

> trading happens directly between traders and never crosses exchange boundaries

All these trades still need to be cleared, no? There's a structure to markets that you're papering over here.

> It's not in the best interest of the banks to monitor their internals too closely.

You may think this, but traders at banks are subject to tons of surveillance. Banks take lots of measures now to catch rogue traders even if it's just because they don't want dirty laundry being aired publicly.

> That's the thought we should all have in our heads before we send any post, or send any text, or send any email, or send any photo, or etc etc etc.

I worked for a large company that had gotten into trouble in the past, with written records used as evidence. All new employees were trained not to write anything down that we would not want to see on the front page of the WSJ. It was stressed that even content on personal devices could be subpoenaed and entered into the public record if issues arose.