Stock Market Manipulation By Millisecond Trading

cfa22 writes "Nice piece in the NY Times today on ultra-fast trading on the NYSE and other markets. The 'algos' that make autonomous trading decisions have to be fast, but I wonder: Is network speed ever a bottleneck? Can anyone with inside experience with millisecond trading provide some details for the curious among us regarding hardware architectures and networking used for such trading systems?" According to the article, high-frequency traders generated about $21 billion in profits last year.

Comments

a solution:

[circletimessquare]

put a "tick" in the market place

the exchange's computers receives orders on a nice lazy interval, say every ten seconds. it may receive a bunch of orders at various milliseconds, but it simply queues them, then releases them at the ten second mark, all with the same timestamp

this removes the unfair manipulations of large players with lots of server iron at the expense of small traders

because surely this sort of fast trading is unegalitarian and against the notion of a free market

i have to defend the obvious wrongness of these fast trades, since it seems some people in this comment thread actually consider this bullshit fair, probably because they're involved and have sold their conscience

you know, the same sort of assholes who bought us million dollar mortgages for waitresses

who cares if you're damaging the marketplace and the economy, right? as long as you're fucking cashing in, right?

Re:Profits, but for whom?

[b4upoo]

Allowing investment or the earning of profit are actually an admission that one layer of morality has vanished.If you look at the Old Testament teachings as well as the history of Jewish rulers you will find examples of monarchs who passed harsh laws against earnings or profits. The idea being that public servants and soldiers received very little and it was an abomination that a merchant or landlord earned more.
                  As a matter of fact if you look into Calvin who founded the protestant sect known as Calvinism about 1600AD you will find a remark that anyone who received interest should be tied to a pole and sliced apart.

Re:Profits, but for whom?

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Really? Using the right to bear arms argument as the common man rising against the government? When betting on an Apache helicopter and your armed uprising, my money is on the Apache.

The second amendment is dead.