4 ms·

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!!!
    - dsacco 9y ago
      > Because trading execution is not the critical path in the execution of a financial strategy!!!! Okay, so what is? > Because the intention of the traders in the same and it is impossible to measure correctly who had the idea first. Why do we want to reward the person who had the idea first? Why is that a more optimal reward mechanism than whoever arrives first? > >Is your claim that HFT does not provide any value to the market? Yes!!! You implicitly admitted that HFT does provide sub-second liquidity benefits elsewhere in this thread, but questioned why we'd want sub-millisecond liquidity. Can you illustrate why we'd want one and not the other (what is especially beneficial or harmful about one versus the other)?
      - poikniok 9y ago
        Just wanted to say you are awesome, actually having the energy to argue with all the people who neither understand how markets work, nor how HFT works.
      - d--b 9y ago
        I just replied elsewhere on your last point: 1. non HFT traders are the fundamental players in the market, without them, HFT traders wouldn't exist. The exchange itself wouldn't exist. The exchange's objective is to connect non HFT traders. 2. subsecond liquidity is useful because non-HFT traders want their orders to be done as fast as possible: they want to their orders to feel immediate. 3. non HFT traders do not care about submillisecond liquidity because the timeframes in which they invest is much larger. 4. submillisecond liquidity is harmful because it incentivize HFT firms to stupidly race to reach the exchange without adding any value for the non HFT traders, while at some point the exchange has to say "we received these 2 orders at the same time".
        dsacco 9y ago
        > 1. non HFT traders are the fundamental players in the market, without them, HFT traders wouldn't exist. The exchange itself wouldn't exist. The exchange's objective is to connect non HFT traders. Sure: there are buyers, sellers and market makers. Naturally the market exists for buyers and sellers. Market makers can't exist without anyone to make a market for, and buyers and sellers can't exist without a way to find each other (more generally, the market requires liquidity to be healthy). The market is an ecosystem. Market makers used to make markets in timescales that required me to wait minutes before I could complete an order. Now I can wait less than a second. So this brings us full circle back to my question: if they benefit the market at sub-second granularity, and you can't demonstrate a harm in sub-millisecond granularity, why do I want them to stop? > 2. subsecond liquidity is useful because non-HFT traders want their orders to be done as fast as possible: they want to their orders to feel immediate. Yep, I'm with you there. > 3. non HFT traders do not care about submillisecond liquidity because the timeframes in which they invest is much larger. And now you've lost me again; I am an active algotrader, and I don't work in HFT timescales, but I appreciate the liquidity benefits I get from HFT all the same because I do trade in timescales that make it meaningful. Furthermore, I can't really consciously think productively in sub-second or sub-millisecond resolution. Retail investors who trade by hand don't need sub-second or sub-millisecond resolution. If you have an argument that both are harmful, make that argument. If you have an argument that sub-millisecond is harmful, make that argument. But so far you're saying it's bad because...people don't need it, which is odd. I don't really try to stop people from doing things that I either don't care or about or which don't harm me. There's a lot of that in the world. > 4. submillisecond liquidity is harmful because it incentivize HFT firms to stupidly race to reach the exchange without adding any value for the non HFT traders, while at some point the exchange has to say "we received these 2 orders at the same time". I'm still not following you, because you're not demonstrating harm here. It's harmful because it's stupid? Why is it stupid? Who can deem it to be stupid? Even if it is stupid, what makes it actually harmful to anyone? As to your last point, what do you think is more likely - timestamp collisions at second, sub-second or sub-millisecond resolution? Frankly your point here is an argument for greater resolution, no lesser.

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!!!
  - dsacco 9y ago
    > Because trading execution is not the critical path in the execution of a financial strategy!!!! Okay, so what is? > Because the intention of the traders in the same and it is impossible to measure correctly who had the idea first. Why do we want to reward the person who had the idea first? Why is that a more optimal reward mechanism than whoever arrives first? > >Is your claim that HFT does not provide any value to the market? Yes!!! You implicitly admitted that HFT does provide sub-second liquidity benefits elsewhere in this thread, but questioned why we'd want sub-millisecond liquidity. Can you illustrate why we'd want one and not the other (what is especially beneficial or harmful about one versus the other)?
    - poikniok 9y ago
      Just wanted to say you are awesome, actually having the energy to argue with all the people who neither understand how markets work, nor how HFT works.
    - d--b 9y ago
      I just replied elsewhere on your last point: 1. non HFT traders are the fundamental players in the market, without them, HFT traders wouldn't exist. The exchange itself wouldn't exist. The exchange's objective is to connect non HFT traders. 2. subsecond liquidity is useful because non-HFT traders want their orders to be done as fast as possible: they want to their orders to feel immediate. 3. non HFT traders do not care about submillisecond liquidity because the timeframes in which they invest is much larger. 4. submillisecond liquidity is harmful because it incentivize HFT firms to stupidly race to reach the exchange without adding any value for the non HFT traders, while at some point the exchange has to say "we received these 2 orders at the same time".
      - dsacco 9y ago
        > 1. non HFT traders are the fundamental players in the market, without them, HFT traders wouldn't exist. The exchange itself wouldn't exist. The exchange's objective is to connect non HFT traders. Sure: there are buyers, sellers and market makers. Naturally the market exists for buyers and sellers. Market makers can't exist without anyone to make a market for, and buyers and sellers can't exist without a way to find each other (more generally, the market requires liquidity to be healthy). The market is an ecosystem. Market makers used to make markets in timescales that required me to wait minutes before I could complete an order. Now I can wait less than a second. So this brings us full circle back to my question: if they benefit the market at sub-second granularity, and you can't demonstrate a harm in sub-millisecond granularity, why do I want them to stop? > 2. subsecond liquidity is useful because non-HFT traders want their orders to be done as fast as possible: they want to their orders to feel immediate. Yep, I'm with you there. > 3. non HFT traders do not care about submillisecond liquidity because the timeframes in which they invest is much larger. And now you've lost me again; I am an active algotrader, and I don't work in HFT timescales, but I appreciate the liquidity benefits I get from HFT all the same because I do trade in timescales that make it meaningful. Furthermore, I can't really consciously think productively in sub-second or sub-millisecond resolution. Retail investors who trade by hand don't need sub-second or sub-millisecond resolution. If you have an argument that both are harmful, make that argument. If you have an argument that sub-millisecond is harmful, make that argument. But so far you're saying it's bad because...people don't need it, which is odd. I don't really try to stop people from doing things that I either don't care or about or which don't harm me. There's a lot of that in the world. > 4. submillisecond liquidity is harmful because it incentivize HFT firms to stupidly race to reach the exchange without adding any value for the non HFT traders, while at some point the exchange has to say "we received these 2 orders at the same time". I'm still not following you, because you're not demonstrating harm here. It's harmful because it's stupid? Why is it stupid? Who can deem it to be stupid? Even if it is stupid, what makes it actually harmful to anyone? As to your last point, what do you think is more likely - timestamp collisions at second, sub-second or sub-millisecond resolution? Frankly your point here is an argument for greater resolution, no lesser.