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>So electronic trading is what? That great innovation where you no longer have to shout in a pit to get your trade executed because, you know, computers. Virt

• tptacek 11y ago
  You keep saying "shout in a pit" as if that was the primary benefit of electronic trading. But of course, that's not the primary benefit. The major benefit is that with humans out of the loop, it's harder to grift huge amounts of money from people trying to do simple trades. For instance: Google [odd eighths scandal]. And that's a modern example of humans rigging the markets, exploiting lack of competition and automation. Things get much worse the further back you go in time.
  • crdoconnor 11y ago
    The primary benefit was that it decreased transaction costs which is the reason spreads went down in the late 90s/early 00s when humans were still in the loop. Humans are of course perfectly capable of rigging the market with or without computers, a fact so mind-blowingly obvious, I'm not sure why you'd accuse someone of believing that it's false. This particular thread was not about market rigging, it was about whether HFT can really be credited with decreasing spreads in the early 00s.
• harryh 11y ago
  The computers that replaced the shouting in ball pits make trades algorithmically and do it in under a second. You have not described a difference between two things that you are trying to distinguish between.