John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:57:53 -0500, John Fields
wrote:

[snip]

How does that work, exactly?

I don't know the details, but there are companies that have set up
just next door to the NYSE and such, to shave milliseconds off their
transaction delays. They spot tiny differences in buy/sell
opportunities and trade stocks for literally seconds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_trading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_trading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading


This, done by hundreds of players, could have interesting
instabilities.

This sounds like pure parasitism to me, and soaks up some of the best
math grads in the country. A small transaction tax would kill this
off.



I could fix that with a couple of 300 baud modems. ;-)

--
Paul Hovnanian
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Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route!