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Because there is a lot more plumbing involved in buying and selling equities or moving money than there is to send and receive email. Specifically, a lot of me

Because there is a lot more plumbing involved in buying and selling equities or moving money than there is to send and receive email. Specifically, a lot of measures to prevent something going wrong, because the the damages are far greater when moving things of great value than an email. You technically can trade stock on a Saturday, just not using all the aforementioned plumbing of a popular stock exchange and brokerage. And you can move money on the weekends, just maybe not with the help of banks because they consider it not worth their while to offer the service on weekends.

ryandrake 3y ago
But why? What makes the plumbing stop on weekends and holidays? Is this some kind of law of nature, or can it be fixed? It seems silly that bank transactions, stock trades, purchases of insurance or anything like that requires human intervention. It's like an HTTP request requiring a human to put it through. Bonkers.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I don’t know all the reasons, it could involve regulators not wanting to be on call, or more likely, the businesses not wanting to be on call. I know that for lots of accounting related things, there used to be a need for downtime time to tally things up, and maybe that schedule carried over. But overall, I would bet it’s just a low demand thing that isn’t worth it. Suppose you opened an exchange that was 24/7. Would the cost to trade on your exchange be sufficiently low to compete with the current exchanges with limited hours? Technically, if you had a paper stock certificate, you could sell it or buy it, and if you had a bag of money, you could move it. But whether or not other people will help you is probably dependent on how much you can pay, which for 99.99% of people, is probably not worth it to just wait a couple days. Think about real estate. It’s possible that you have a paper deed and draw up some documents and buy or sell it in 30 minutes, but the cost of something going wrong is so high that it makes sense to take a little time and use lawyers to double and triple check things.
- nottorp 3y ago
  If 0.01% of the transactions a bank processes daily need some form of human intervention, that's already a full day for a lot of bank employees. Said bank employees would rather have the same number of days off we the rest do.
  - theideaofcoffee 3y ago
    Then I guess we have to question why those .01% of transactions need human intervention at all. It seem like .01% of requests to Google Search don't need human interaction, why does money, now that it's mostly just an entry in a database somewhere (or on its way to be)? If it's a matter of approvals, then those should be codified in rules that can be expressed in code. That may be difficult for laws, the general refrain being 'laws aren't code', but money transfer is just a list of rules, transactions, settlement dates and so on.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      > but money transfer is just a list of rules, transactions, settlement dates and so on. Never worked with financial transactions but I have a feeling what you said qualifies as 'famous last words'.
    - clarada 3y ago
      Because with transactions things have to match and sometimes data errors happen. Take something really simple like a bank cash transfer. Do you really think that no one ever accidentally puts in a typo in an account number or an amount? If that happens then the transaction either fails or doesn't do as desired. Either way someone has to manually resolve it. Take that and put it on steroids for securities transactions.
    - Jevon23 3y ago
      >money transfer is just a list of rules, transactions, settlement dates and so on. Surely you must appreciate how obnoxious it is when people assume that software development is just “translating the requirements into code”, right?
theideaofcoffee 3y ago
In a lower reply of mine, I still have to ask why this is the case. If it's that big of a thing, then there should be rules defined to catch things. We have exception handlers for code and steps that go awry, why not the same for money, so the rest of the money flow can keep going, and only the weird things need to be checked out (and further rules then be refined).
- clarada 3y ago
  That's what happens. Almost all transactions are Straight Through Processed. It's only when things go wrong (or very exceptional cases) that a human gets involved. The banks can't afford for humans to be involved in too many transactions.

ryandrake 3y ago

But why? What makes the plumbing stop on weekends and holidays? Is this some kind of law of nature, or can it be fixed? It seems silly that bank transactions, stock trades, purchases of insurance or anything like that requires human intervention. It's like an HTTP request requiring a human to put it through. Bonkers.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I don’t know all the reasons, it could involve regulators not wanting to be on call, or more likely, the businesses not wanting to be on call. I know that for lots of accounting related things, there used to be a need for downtime time to tally things up, and maybe that schedule carried over. But overall, I would bet it’s just a low demand thing that isn’t worth it. Suppose you opened an exchange that was 24/7. Would the cost to trade on your exchange be sufficiently low to compete with the current exchanges with limited hours? Technically, if you had a paper stock certificate, you could sell it or buy it, and if you had a bag of money, you could move it. But whether or not other people will help you is probably dependent on how much you can pay, which for 99.99% of people, is probably not worth it to just wait a couple days. Think about real estate. It’s possible that you have a paper deed and draw up some documents and buy or sell it in 30 minutes, but the cost of something going wrong is so high that it makes sense to take a little time and use lawyers to double and triple check things.
nottorp 3y ago
If 0.01% of the transactions a bank processes daily need some form of human intervention, that's already a full day for a lot of bank employees. Said bank employees would rather have the same number of days off we the rest do.
- theideaofcoffee 3y ago
  Then I guess we have to question why those .01% of transactions need human intervention at all. It seem like .01% of requests to Google Search don't need human interaction, why does money, now that it's mostly just an entry in a database somewhere (or on its way to be)? If it's a matter of approvals, then those should be codified in rules that can be expressed in code. That may be difficult for laws, the general refrain being 'laws aren't code', but money transfer is just a list of rules, transactions, settlement dates and so on.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    > but money transfer is just a list of rules, transactions, settlement dates and so on. Never worked with financial transactions but I have a feeling what you said qualifies as 'famous last words'.
  - clarada 3y ago
    Because with transactions things have to match and sometimes data errors happen. Take something really simple like a bank cash transfer. Do you really think that no one ever accidentally puts in a typo in an account number or an amount? If that happens then the transaction either fails or doesn't do as desired. Either way someone has to manually resolve it. Take that and put it on steroids for securities transactions.
  - Jevon23 3y ago
    >money transfer is just a list of rules, transactions, settlement dates and so on. Surely you must appreciate how obnoxious it is when people assume that software development is just “translating the requirements into code”, right?

theideaofcoffee 3y ago

In a lower reply of mine, I still have to ask why this is the case. If it's that big of a thing, then there should be rules defined to catch things. We have exception handlers for code and steps that go awry, why not the same for money, so the rest of the money flow can keep going, and only the weird things need to be checked out (and further rules then be refined).

clarada 3y ago
That's what happens. Almost all transactions are Straight Through Processed. It's only when things go wrong (or very exceptional cases) that a human gets involved. The banks can't afford for humans to be involved in too many transactions.