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

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.