From making visible to hiding. Visual representations of financial markets as tools of manipulation and active and living agents

Abstract

This article shows that visual representations of financial markets not only make them visible, i.e. present and reveal certain important financial information such as the size and distribution of demand and supply, the quantity, type and intentions of sellers and buyers, trends and patterns in price movements, or the depth, liquidity and sentiment of the market, but also hide what they are supposed to reveal and make visible. What is important, they do this not only because of the ways of their production; not only because of pitfalls and errors inherent in them; not only because of framing processes they are subjected to, but also because of their interactive nature that allows financial agents to manipulate them. This fact, and above all its possibility, carries with itself important consequences for the role that the visual representations play in the functioning of capital markets. Namely, it causes that these representations, regardless of other factors, themselves become a source of uncertainty in these markets. As such, they are therefore not so much neutral and passive representations of financial exchange as rather tools for manipulation on the one hand and active and living agents on the other.