5 ms·

I feel like it's also got to be super stressful Imagine getting a call you system is down and is costing them millions per hour

toast0 1y ago
On the other hand, no nights or weekends.
- hamonrye 1y ago
  PoE is the way to use low voltage in electronics.
- noitpmeder 1y ago
  This is becoming less and less true every day. 24/7 markets are coming whether you want them or not, and if you're not trading outside of US Equity hours you're leaving significant money on the table.
  - dfex 1y ago
    Genuinely curious - would 24x7 low-latency trading matter then? Wouldn't after-hours trading (for your local timezone) be happening on an exchange in another location? Or do you mean dark pools/private exchanges that may run 24x7?
  - Galanwe 1y ago
    > This is becoming less and less true every day. 24/7 markets are coming whether you want them or not This has still to exist for real. Every couple of years there is a resurgence of "we should have 24/7 equity markets", followed by milestone announcements of Nasdaq. The reality is more... nuanced. First, there has to be a wide enough window for corporate actions and news dissemination to happen. Not only is that a regulatory requirement, but anyway no sane investor would like to trade in such a window even if possible. Second, there are already early sessions, pre opening sessions, and late sessions on most American markets. The liquidity there is almost inexistant, so I wouldn't say there is a huge demand for extended trading hours by non-retail participants. And last, half the liquidity of US markets is not on lit books, and half the remaining lit liquidity is close to the auction. I don't think it would even be a net profit for lit exchanges to extend their hours in these conditions. As for dark pool, I think only 2 or 3 of the smaller ones are 24/7, like the one from IB. > if you're not trading outside of US Equity hours you're leaving significant money on the table HFTs need a lot of liquidity and tight spreads, that's pretty much only doable at scale in the US and Japan. Europe and EM are either not liquid enough, or only really able to sustain low capital ad-hoc strategies.
ta1243 1y ago
I'd want to know why they had such a system as a single point of failure
- kakacik 1y ago
  No business is designed ideally. Now do you want the job or we move to another one who will accept this?
  - ta1243 1y ago
    Fortunately in important industries that attitude doesn't fly. Imagine a single person making a single mistake causing a building to collapse? Or a nuclear plant to meltdown.
- hshdhdhehd 1y ago
  Failure modes can be a bug making a bad trade while doing so at 100% uptime.
zorked 1y ago
The way to think is the opposite: your system is making millions per hour.
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  No the way to think is ‘it’s down less than our closest competitors system’
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- ktm5j 1y ago
  What about when something goes wrong because you overlooked some detail?
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Shit happens. I wrote the firmware for a multi-link HDLC card which earned vast amounts of money for the company that commissioned it. I was quite aware of my responsibility and so was the hardware team. We stress tested the crap out of it before releasing to production and fortunately it never locked up when it was in actual use but we had some pretty wild and very rare (so hard to trigger and reproduce) bugs which delayed deployment considerably. But none of this gave me the kind of feeling that working on fuel estimation software for aircraft gave. That's when there are in the most literal sense lives on the line, and that's a completely different kind of pressure. You simply can not fuck up. It also really rammed home the value of code review and having a good specification so that you can ensure that within the envelope of input parameters your software does what it is supposed to do.
    - drmpeg 1y ago
      Multi-link HDLC. That brings me back to 1985 and the Intel 8274, Zilog Z8530 and the Western Digital WD2511 (that implemented the layer 2 protocol in silicon).
gosub100 1y ago
You can code a failsafe, or what they call in other industries, an interlock. If an order exceeds some sane limit, or a loss is incurred that exceeds a limit, or the limit-checker fails to proactively ping the interlock, then an independent mechanism shuts it down. This is how, say, a modern x-ray machine prevents itself from failing in a way that radiation gets stuck on.

toast0 1y ago

On the other hand, no nights or weekends.

hamonrye 1y ago
PoE is the way to use low voltage in electronics.
noitpmeder 1y ago
This is becoming less and less true every day. 24/7 markets are coming whether you want them or not, and if you're not trading outside of US Equity hours you're leaving significant money on the table.
- dfex 1y ago
  Genuinely curious - would 24x7 low-latency trading matter then? Wouldn't after-hours trading (for your local timezone) be happening on an exchange in another location? Or do you mean dark pools/private exchanges that may run 24x7?
- Galanwe 1y ago
  > This is becoming less and less true every day. 24/7 markets are coming whether you want them or not This has still to exist for real. Every couple of years there is a resurgence of "we should have 24/7 equity markets", followed by milestone announcements of Nasdaq. The reality is more... nuanced. First, there has to be a wide enough window for corporate actions and news dissemination to happen. Not only is that a regulatory requirement, but anyway no sane investor would like to trade in such a window even if possible. Second, there are already early sessions, pre opening sessions, and late sessions on most American markets. The liquidity there is almost inexistant, so I wouldn't say there is a huge demand for extended trading hours by non-retail participants. And last, half the liquidity of US markets is not on lit books, and half the remaining lit liquidity is close to the auction. I don't think it would even be a net profit for lit exchanges to extend their hours in these conditions. As for dark pool, I think only 2 or 3 of the smaller ones are 24/7, like the one from IB. > if you're not trading outside of US Equity hours you're leaving significant money on the table HFTs need a lot of liquidity and tight spreads, that's pretty much only doable at scale in the US and Japan. Europe and EM are either not liquid enough, or only really able to sustain low capital ad-hoc strategies.

ta1243 1y ago

I'd want to know why they had such a system as a single point of failure

kakacik 1y ago
No business is designed ideally. Now do you want the job or we move to another one who will accept this?
- ta1243 1y ago
  Fortunately in important industries that attitude doesn't fly. Imagine a single person making a single mistake causing a building to collapse? Or a nuclear plant to meltdown.
hshdhdhehd 1y ago
Failure modes can be a bug making a bad trade while doing so at 100% uptime.

zorked 1y ago

The way to think is the opposite: your system is making millions per hour.

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
No the way to think is ‘it’s down less than our closest competitors system’
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
ktm5j 1y ago
What about when something goes wrong because you overlooked some detail?
- jacquesm 1y ago
  Shit happens. I wrote the firmware for a multi-link HDLC card which earned vast amounts of money for the company that commissioned it. I was quite aware of my responsibility and so was the hardware team. We stress tested the crap out of it before releasing to production and fortunately it never locked up when it was in actual use but we had some pretty wild and very rare (so hard to trigger and reproduce) bugs which delayed deployment considerably. But none of this gave me the kind of feeling that working on fuel estimation software for aircraft gave. That's when there are in the most literal sense lives on the line, and that's a completely different kind of pressure. You simply can not fuck up. It also really rammed home the value of code review and having a good specification so that you can ensure that within the envelope of input parameters your software does what it is supposed to do.
  - drmpeg 1y ago
    Multi-link HDLC. That brings me back to 1985 and the Intel 8274, Zilog Z8530 and the Western Digital WD2511 (that implemented the layer 2 protocol in silicon).

gosub100 1y ago

You can code a failsafe, or what they call in other industries, an interlock. If an order exceeds some sane limit, or a loss is incurred that exceeds a limit, or the limit-checker fails to proactively ping the interlock, then an independent mechanism shuts it down. This is how, say, a modern x-ray machine prevents itself from failing in a way that radiation gets stuck on.