Friday, February 7, 2014

So you want to be a market trader? (WSJ)

The advent of high speed computing has given the edge to more than one aspect of human development.  In the financial world, and across global markets, these advantages have been profound.  The co-location of trading houses with the exchanges.  The installation of direct fibre optic data feeds to the trading desks.  And the purchase of direct feeds on news for advance notice of important economic news.  These all provide the basis to an infinitesimally small time advantage, but with the sophistication of modern computing, this almost invisible differential can make all the difference.  As we have also witnessed, these speeds coupled with automation also can result in majestic losses and dramatic blink of an eye price moves.  Watch your stops ~ Trading on.
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MARKETS

Speed Traders Get an Edge

Paying for Direct Access to News Releases Can Give a Lucrative Time Advantage

By  CONNECT
Feb. 6, 2014 8:49 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON—High-frequency traders have been paying to get direct access to market-moving news releases, a practice that can give firms the ability to trade fractions of a second ahead of less fleet-footed investors.
The traders are getting news releases from Business Wire, which distributes corporate-earnings releases and economic reports such as the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's monthly manufacturing survey, and from Marketwired, a Toronto company that distributes earnings releases and the ADP monthly employment report.
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Such direct access isn't illegal. By paying for direct feeds from the distributors and using high-speed algorithms to crunch data and enter orders, traders can get a fleeting—but lucrative—edge over other investors, according to traders and people familiar with the practice. The reason: tiny lags between the time the distributors release the news and when media outlets send them out to the public, including other investors.

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