7 ms·

Trading Fortunes Depend on a Mysterious Antenna in an Empty Field

45 points by randomname2 9y ago

ricardobeat 9y ago
On a broader perspective this is so stupid. Allocate space inside the DC itself and rent it out to trading firms if that's the case, even more money to be made!
- Cacti 9y ago
  The exchanges aren't monolithic institutions, they have numerous integrations with feeds from other exchanges and other order systems. Taking advantage of that disparity is one of the ways HFT techniques can profit. Also, not every fund can fit their computers into an exchange building, nor would they necessarily want to.
  - ricardobeat 9y ago
    I was being sarcastic.
- NelsonMinar 9y ago
  They do that some times, including carefully measured network cables so every customer has the exact same latency. https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/
- aaron987 9y ago
  This was discussed in the book "Flashboys". The real challenge with high speed trading in the long distance communication between the stuff on Wall Street and the commodities action going on in Chicago. That long distance communication is what many of these towers are being used for.
- jgalt212 9y ago
  Is colo done in adtech as well? I imagine with more and more sophisticated customer modeling engines, each millisecond counts, and the closer you are to the exchange the more of those 100 ms you can spend on your own IP and now data transmission.
pleboidal 9y ago
Billions of what? People? Dollars?
- matheweis 9y ago
  Not OP but title is from the ZeroHedge article, which clarifies "It could be billions in revenues". The link may have been changed by HN to be closer to the source, since ZeroHedge is mostly requoting it anyway: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-12/mysterious-antenna-emerges-empty-chicago-field-billions-depend-it http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-12/mysterious-antenna-...
  - pleboidal 9y ago
    Yeah, thanks for the downvotes everybody! The title is changed to the more accurate headline, but fuck me for voicing any criticism! Here's another shitty comment you can downvote. Have fun. This is what you get for frivolous downvotes. More bile. Fuck this karma-whore rating shitshow.
givinguflac 9y ago
I remember reading about the european version of this trading tech last year: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/private-microwave-networks-financial-hft/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/priva... Pretty cool but crazy at the same time.
d--b 9y ago
This is ridiculous. Market authorities should disallow sub-centisecond trades, and allocate the trades that fall on the same centisecond at random. That would save a lot of people a lot of time and money...
- motoboi 9y ago
  What is so bad about it in your oppinion?
  - d--b 9y ago
    Financial markets are meant for people to exchange financial products. People don't think very fast. So there is absolutely no value for actual market participants to be able to do sub-millisecond trades. If 2 person read the same news and send a trade order at the same hundredth of second, who wins the trade should be attributed at random, not to whoever is closest to the exchange. Super fast trades only allow high frequency trading firms to skim the market...
    - dsacco 9y ago
      > Financial markets are meant for people to exchange financial products. People don't think very fast. So there is absolutely no value for actual market participants to be able to do sub-millisecond trades. Who are all the market participants? How do you know there is no value in sub-millisecond trades? Why is trading different from the many other computational tasks humans strive to shave milliseconds off of that they can't possibly notice? > If 2 person read the same news and send a trade order at the same hundredth of second, who wins the trade should be attributed at random, not to whoever is closest to the exchange. Why? > Super fast trades only allow high frequency trading firms to skim the market... Is your claim that HFT does not provide any value to the market?
      - d--b 9y ago
        > Why is trading different from the many other computational tasks humans strive to shave milliseconds off of that they can't possibly notice? Because trading execution is not the critical path in the execution of a financial strategy!!!! > why? Because the intention of the traders in the same and it is impossible to measure correctly who had the idea first. > Is your claim that HFT does not provide any value to the market? Yes!!!
zyztem 9y ago
First hand reports from a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sniperinmahwah.wordpr...
- theocean154 9y ago
  sniper's stuff is awesome
philsnow 9y ago
Can companies buy land in between towers owned by competitors, and erect radio-opaque billboards ?

45 points by randomname2 9y ago

On a broader perspective this is so stupid. Allocate space inside the DC itself and rent it out to trading firms if that's the case, even more money to be made!

Cacti 9y ago
The exchanges aren't monolithic institutions, they have numerous integrations with feeds from other exchanges and other order systems. Taking advantage of that disparity is one of the ways HFT techniques can profit. Also, not every fund can fit their computers into an exchange building, nor would they necessarily want to.
- ricardobeat 9y ago
  I was being sarcastic.
NelsonMinar 9y ago
They do that some times, including carefully measured network cables so every customer has the exact same latency. https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/
aaron987 9y ago
This was discussed in the book "Flashboys". The real challenge with high speed trading in the long distance communication between the stuff on Wall Street and the commodities action going on in Chicago. That long distance communication is what many of these towers are being used for.
jgalt212 9y ago
Is colo done in adtech as well? I imagine with more and more sophisticated customer modeling engines, each millisecond counts, and the closer you are to the exchange the more of those 100 ms you can spend on your own IP and now data transmission.

pleboidal 9y ago

Billions of what? People? Dollars?

matheweis 9y ago
Not OP but title is from the ZeroHedge article, which clarifies "It could be billions in revenues". The link may have been changed by HN to be closer to the source, since ZeroHedge is mostly requoting it anyway: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-12/mysterious-antenna-emerges-empty-chicago-field-billions-depend-it http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-12/mysterious-antenna-...
- pleboidal 9y ago
  Yeah, thanks for the downvotes everybody! The title is changed to the more accurate headline, but fuck me for voicing any criticism! Here's another shitty comment you can downvote. Have fun. This is what you get for frivolous downvotes. More bile. Fuck this karma-whore rating shitshow.

givinguflac 9y ago

I remember reading about the european version of this trading tech last year: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/private-microwave-networks-financial-hft/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/priva... Pretty cool but crazy at the same time.

d--b 9y ago

This is ridiculous. Market authorities should disallow sub-centisecond trades, and allocate the trades that fall on the same centisecond at random. That would save a lot of people a lot of time and money...

motoboi 9y ago
What is so bad about it in your oppinion?
- d--b 9y ago
  Financial markets are meant for people to exchange financial products. People don't think very fast. So there is absolutely no value for actual market participants to be able to do sub-millisecond trades. If 2 person read the same news and send a trade order at the same hundredth of second, who wins the trade should be attributed at random, not to whoever is closest to the exchange. Super fast trades only allow high frequency trading firms to skim the market...
  - dsacco 9y ago
    > Financial markets are meant for people to exchange financial products. People don't think very fast. So there is absolutely no value for actual market participants to be able to do sub-millisecond trades. Who are all the market participants? How do you know there is no value in sub-millisecond trades? Why is trading different from the many other computational tasks humans strive to shave milliseconds off of that they can't possibly notice? > If 2 person read the same news and send a trade order at the same hundredth of second, who wins the trade should be attributed at random, not to whoever is closest to the exchange. Why? > Super fast trades only allow high frequency trading firms to skim the market... Is your claim that HFT does not provide any value to the market?
    - d--b 9y ago
      > Why is trading different from the many other computational tasks humans strive to shave milliseconds off of that they can't possibly notice? Because trading execution is not the critical path in the execution of a financial strategy!!!! > why? Because the intention of the traders in the same and it is impossible to measure correctly who had the idea first. > Is your claim that HFT does not provide any value to the market? Yes!!!

zyztem 9y ago

First hand reports from a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sniperinmahwah.wordpr...

theocean154 9y ago
sniper's stuff is awesome

philsnow 9y ago

Can companies buy land in between towers owned by competitors, and erect radio-opaque billboards ?