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The origin of the term is kind of comical to modern ears: The terms originate from the era when stock market trades were executed via paper carried by hand bet

The origin of the term is kind of comical to modern ears: The terms originate from the era when stock market trades were executed via paper carried by hand between trading desks. The routine business of hand-carrying client orders between desks would normally proceed at a walking pace, but a broker could literally run in front of the walking traffic to reach the desk and execute his own personal account order immediately before a large client order. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running

mieseratte 7y ago
Reminds me of the term "sneakernet." I wonder if "front running" was a thing back in the days of manually moving changes onto a source control server located in-office. I can imagine a mad dash to get code in first on a Friday afternoon.
- arthur_pryor 7y ago
  sneakernet is still a useful thing for large transfers (even in literal walking distance, sometimes). like if i'm sending a large file to a person in the same office or house, i might prefer to just put it on a thumb drive and hand it to them, instead of copying it to some network share or something. i imagine this will be true for a while (i.e. the practical throughput of sneakernet in many cases will keep outpacing the practical throughput of wired and wireless networks, probably for a long time).
Terr_ 7y ago
> The origin of the term is kind of comical to modern ears It's interesting, but I don't think it stands out as "comical" from the finance realm, given that programmers unironically talk about "race" conditions during the "handshakes" from "tunneling" with a "certificate" in order to to "serve" up "pages". On a far-more-obscure note, the etymology of "computer" itself can be traced back towards "something which counts using small pebbles of limestone."
- smnrchrds 7y ago
  It is comical in the sense that software bugs being named after a literal bug (a moth to be exact) is.
- JackFr 7y ago
  If you’ve ever cut and paste with scissors and a glue stick...
bigiain 7y ago
Same old same old. Only these days it gets done by building data centres in across the river New Jersey and as-the-bird-flies microwave links between New York and London...
- eismcc 7y ago
  Wow! Didn’t know about these “secret” microwave networks. Eg https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/private-microwave-networks-financial-hft/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/priva...
  - caymanjim 7y ago
    They're not really secret, they're standard practice. Not all that widely known, but that's because they're geeky trivia to most people. There are multiple microwave relay networks between Chicago and NYC. It's neat stuff. I've worked for an options market maker, chasing nanoseconds of latency improvements. If you want racks in the exchange data center, you have to pay more to be on one side of the room vs. the other, because the latency improvement for being a couple hundred feet closer actually matters.
  - 4043D 7y ago
    Some hft firms are rumored to be using short wave radio. Everything old is new again. https://hackaday.com/2018/05/12/hft-on-hf-you-cant-beat-it-for-latency/ https://hackaday.com/2018/05/12/hft-on-hf-you-cant-beat-it-f...
  - alexpetralia 7y ago
    If you are really curious, I highly recommend this blog! https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/ https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/ (Many people who work in HFT are quite familiar with it.) It's an entertaining and fascinating "view of the inside."
- harry8 7y ago
  Not really. They're reacting to someone actually trading in public on a public market. That is not front running. Someone has to react to a thing that actually happened in the public market, quickest. By definition someone has to be first. Cheating to get there, eg breaking before the starting gun, is illegal. Reacting first is not. Front running is where you get information about a trade before the trade happens, illegally, and get your own trade in first with advance knowledge that you should not have. That's still 100% against the law whether a computer is involved or not. Do it and you will go to jail. If you got your information from the public market because it is a thing that already happened, then ok. That is really just fine. Other laws might be being broken somehow in other ways or they might not but seriously that's the whole point of a public market and using public information. Everyone has the chance to react as fast as they can.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It was only 30 years ago that manual trading ended in London. Similar time period for the US. Other exchanges and countries lasted much longer. See Eddie Murphy's Trading Places. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37751599 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37751599
- 1e-9 7y ago
  There's actually still a couple hundred or so traders in the pits at the CME in Chicago. Certainly nothing like what it used to be, though.

mieseratte 7y ago

Reminds me of the term "sneakernet." I wonder if "front running" was a thing back in the days of manually moving changes onto a source control server located in-office. I can imagine a mad dash to get code in first on a Friday afternoon.

arthur_pryor 7y ago
sneakernet is still a useful thing for large transfers (even in literal walking distance, sometimes). like if i'm sending a large file to a person in the same office or house, i might prefer to just put it on a thumb drive and hand it to them, instead of copying it to some network share or something. i imagine this will be true for a while (i.e. the practical throughput of sneakernet in many cases will keep outpacing the practical throughput of wired and wireless networks, probably for a long time).

Terr_ 7y ago

> The origin of the term is kind of comical to modern ears It's interesting, but I don't think it stands out as "comical" from the finance realm, given that programmers unironically talk about "race" conditions during the "handshakes" from "tunneling" with a "certificate" in order to to "serve" up "pages". On a far-more-obscure note, the etymology of "computer" itself can be traced back towards "something which counts using small pebbles of limestone."

smnrchrds 7y ago
It is comical in the sense that software bugs being named after a literal bug (a moth to be exact) is.
JackFr 7y ago
If you’ve ever cut and paste with scissors and a glue stick...

bigiain 7y ago

Same old same old. Only these days it gets done by building data centres in across the river New Jersey and as-the-bird-flies microwave links between New York and London...

eismcc 7y ago
Wow! Didn’t know about these “secret” microwave networks. Eg https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/private-microwave-networks-financial-hft/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/priva...
- caymanjim 7y ago
  They're not really secret, they're standard practice. Not all that widely known, but that's because they're geeky trivia to most people. There are multiple microwave relay networks between Chicago and NYC. It's neat stuff. I've worked for an options market maker, chasing nanoseconds of latency improvements. If you want racks in the exchange data center, you have to pay more to be on one side of the room vs. the other, because the latency improvement for being a couple hundred feet closer actually matters.
- 4043D 7y ago
  Some hft firms are rumored to be using short wave radio. Everything old is new again. https://hackaday.com/2018/05/12/hft-on-hf-you-cant-beat-it-for-latency/ https://hackaday.com/2018/05/12/hft-on-hf-you-cant-beat-it-f...
- alexpetralia 7y ago
  If you are really curious, I highly recommend this blog! https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/ https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/ (Many people who work in HFT are quite familiar with it.) It's an entertaining and fascinating "view of the inside."
harry8 7y ago
Not really. They're reacting to someone actually trading in public on a public market. That is not front running. Someone has to react to a thing that actually happened in the public market, quickest. By definition someone has to be first. Cheating to get there, eg breaking before the starting gun, is illegal. Reacting first is not. Front running is where you get information about a trade before the trade happens, illegally, and get your own trade in first with advance knowledge that you should not have. That's still 100% against the law whether a computer is involved or not. Do it and you will go to jail. If you got your information from the public market because it is a thing that already happened, then ok. That is really just fine. Other laws might be being broken somehow in other ways or they might not but seriously that's the whole point of a public market and using public information. Everyone has the chance to react as fast as they can.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

It was only 30 years ago that manual trading ended in London. Similar time period for the US. Other exchanges and countries lasted much longer. See Eddie Murphy's Trading Places. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37751599 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37751599

1e-9 7y ago
There's actually still a couple hundred or so traders in the pits at the CME in Chicago. Certainly nothing like what it used to be, though.