4 ms·

> What if you're in the northern hemisphere and want to buy strawberries in December? Or you want a pint of milk, but your local dairy only sells it by the tank

> What if you're in the northern hemisphere and want to buy strawberries in December? Or you want a pint of milk, but your local dairy only sells it by the tanker? You do understand how that's different from HFT, right? That's more of a market making job. HFT is like hiring The Flash to be your grocery store clerk, who notices you reaching for the milk, and runs in to empty out the shelf and raise the price by 0.003 cents by the time your hand gets there.

growse 3y ago
> You do understand how that's different from HFT, right? HFTs provide liquidity, which by definition is providing what people want to buy/sell, when they want to trade it and it the desired quantity. > HFT is like hiring The Flash to be your grocery store clerk, who notices you reaching for the milk, and runs in to empty out the shelf and raise the price by 0.003 cents by the time your hand gets there. This is not what HFTs do. They can't see your "hand reaching", they see your quote hit the book at the same time as everyone else. It's not magic. They're literally the market makers. Your complaint appears to be that they're good at reacting to new information, i.e. being good market makers.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  > they see your quote hit the book at the same time as everyone else. It's not magic. Every exchange gives "good standing market participants" aka HFT market makers first dibs on orders. If a gallon of milk goes on sale and I'm waiting in line with a market maker I will never make the sale, it'll go the the HFT firm every time.
  - growse 3y ago
    Care to link to a major equity exchange's product page and/or sec declaration that details exactly how this works (ie, criteria for getting "first dibs", what that actually means etc)? Or are you talking about exchange hosting, where you get lower latency if you pay more to colocate?
dahfizz 3y ago
That's not how it works. They can't "see you reaching for the milk".

growse 3y ago

> You do understand how that's different from HFT, right? HFTs provide liquidity, which by definition is providing what people want to buy/sell, when they want to trade it and it the desired quantity. > HFT is like hiring The Flash to be your grocery store clerk, who notices you reaching for the milk, and runs in to empty out the shelf and raise the price by 0.003 cents by the time your hand gets there. This is not what HFTs do. They can't see your "hand reaching", they see your quote hit the book at the same time as everyone else. It's not magic. They're literally the market makers. Your complaint appears to be that they're good at reacting to new information, i.e. being good market makers.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
> they see your quote hit the book at the same time as everyone else. It's not magic. Every exchange gives "good standing market participants" aka HFT market makers first dibs on orders. If a gallon of milk goes on sale and I'm waiting in line with a market maker I will never make the sale, it'll go the the HFT firm every time.
- growse 3y ago
  Care to link to a major equity exchange's product page and/or sec declaration that details exactly how this works (ie, criteria for getting "first dibs", what that actually means etc)? Or are you talking about exchange hosting, where you get lower latency if you pay more to colocate?

dahfizz 3y ago

That's not how it works. They can't "see you reaching for the milk".