A remarkable look at how the growth, technology, and politics of high-frequency trading have altered global financial markets In today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions. Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of this epic transformation. Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading—automated high-frequency trading or HFT—began and then spread throughout the world. HFT has brought new efficiency to global trading, but has also created an unrelenting race for speed, leading to a systematic, subterranean battle among HFT algorithms. In HFT, time is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second), and in a nanosecond the fastest possible signal—light in a vacuum—can travel only thirty centimeters, or roughly a foot. That makes HFT exquisitely sensitive to the length and transmission capacity of the cables connecting computer servers to the exchanges’ systems and to the location of the microwave towers that carry signals between computer datacenters. Drawing from more than 300 interviews with high-frequency traders, the people who supply them with technological and communication capabilities, exchange staff, regulators, and many others, MacKenzie reveals the extraordinary efforts expended to speed up every aspect of trading. He looks at how in some markets big banks have fought off the challenge from HFT firms, and how exchanges sometimes engineer technical systems to favor certain types of algorithms over others. Focusing on the material, political, and economic characteristics of high-frequency trading, Trading at the Speed of Light offers a unique glimpse into its influence on global finance and where it could lead us in the future.

The markets have evolved at breakneck speed during the past decade, and change has accelerated dramatically since 2007's disastrous regulatory "reforms." An unrelenting focus on technology, hyper-short-term trading, speed, and volume has eclipsed sanity: markets have been hijacked by high-powered interests at the expense of investors and the entire capital-raising process. A small consortium of players is making billions by skimming and scalping unaware investors -- and, in so doing, they've transformed our markets from the world's envy into a barren wasteland of terror. Since these events began, Themis Trading's Joe Saluzzi and Sal Arnuk have offered an unwavering voice of reasoned dissent. Their small brokerage has stood up against the hijackers in every venue: their daily writings are now followed by investors, regulators, the media, and "Main Street" investors worldwide. Saluzzi and Arnuk don't take prisoners! Now, in Broken Markets, they explain how all this happened, who did it, what it means, and what's coming next. You'll understand the true implications of events ranging from the crash of 1987 to the "Flash Crash" -- and discover what it all means to you and your future. Warning: you will get angry (if you aren't already). But you'll know exactly why you're angry, who you're angry at, and what needs to be done!

Argues that post-crisis Wall Street continues to be controlled by large banks and explains how a small, diverse group of Wall Street men have banded together to reform the financial markets.

The secrets of high-frequency trading revealed! “Edgar’s book is fantastic . . . I recommend it highly.” —Bart Chilton, Commissioner, United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) “I have interviewed the most successful high-frequency traders in New York and Chicago, but I have learned so much more by reading Perez’s book. He covers the most relevant topics we need to know today and tomorrow.” —Mark Abeshouse, Chairman, Augustus Capital “Alternating between an annotated timeline of the development of high-frequency trading and interviews with top high-frequency traders, Perez illuminates the world of speed. All in all, an enlightening book.” —Brenda Jubin, contributor to Seeking Alpha “This is a comprehensive and compelling summary of the trading industry in general, as well as high-frequency trading. If you are interested in this field or of knowing a critical component of all future markets—read this book.” —Paul Dowding, Managing Director, Meridian Equity Partners “Very timely, covers the 2010 Flash Crash and the current high-frequency trading environment.” —Patrick Sweeney, Vice President, JP Morgan Chase “There is a new day in trading and speed is the key. Edgar Perez is the poster child.” —Eugene Steele, Managing Partner, Trading Rooms World Wide About the Book: High-frequency traders have been called many things—from masters of the universe and market pioneers to exploiters, computer geeks, and even predators. Everyone in the business of investing has an opinion of speed traders, but how many really understand how they operate? The shadow people of the investing world, today’s high-frequency traders have decidedly kept a low profile—until now. In The Speed Traders, Edgar Perez, founder of the prestigious business networking community Golden Networking, opens the door to the secretive world of high-frequency trading (HFT). Inside, prominent figures of HFT drop their guard and speak with unprecedented candidness about their trade. Perez begins with an overview of computerized trading, which formally began on February 8, 1971, when NASDAQ launched the world’s first electronic market with 2,500 over-the-counter stocks and which has evolved into the present-day practice of making multiple trades in a matter of microseconds. He then picks the brains of today’s top players. Manoj Narang (Tradeworx), Peter van Kleef (Lakeview Arbitrage), and Aaron Lebovitz (Infinium Capital Management) are just a few of the luminaries who decided to break their silence and speak openly to Perez. Virtually all of the expertise available from the world of speed trading is packed into these pages. You’ll get insight from HFT’s most influential trailblazers on the important issues, including: The basics of launching an HFT platform The important role speed traders play in providing market liquidity The real story behind the “flash crash” of May 2010 Emerging global HFT markets M&A and consolidation among the world’s biggest exchanges The Speed Traders is the most comprehensive, revealing work available on the most important development in trading in generations. High-frequency trading will no doubt play an ever larger role as computer technology advances and the global exchanges embrace fast electronic access. Essential reading for regulators and investors alike, The Speed Traders explains everything there is to know about how today’s high-frequency traders make millions—one cent at a time.

The past twenty years have seen an extraordinary growth in the use of quantitative methods in financial markets. Finance professionals now routinely use sophisticated statistical techniques in portfolio management, proprietary trading, risk management, financial consulting, and securities regulation. This graduate-level textbook is intended for PhD students, advanced MBA students, and industry professionals interested in the econometrics of financial modeling. The book covers the entire spectrum of empirical finance, including: the predictability of asset returns, tests of the Random Walk Hypothesis, the microstructure of securities markets, event analysis, the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory, the term structure of interest rates, dynamic models of economic equilibrium, and nonlinear financial models such as ARCH, neural networks, statistical fractals, and chaos theory. Each chapter develops statistical techniques within the context of a particular financial application. This exciting new text contains a unique and accessible combination of theory and practice, bringing state-of-the-art statistical techniques to the forefront of financial applications. Each chapter also includes a discussion of recent empirical evidence, for example, the rejection of the Random Walk Hypothesis, as well as problems designed to help readers incorporate what they have read into their own applications.

The true meaning of investment discipline is to trade only when you rationally expect that you will achieve your desired objective. Accordingly, managers must thoroughly understand why they trade. Because trading is a zero-sum game, good investment discipline also requires that managers understand why their counterparties trade. This book surveys the many reasons why people trade and identifies the implications of the zero-sum game for investment discipline. It also identifies the origins of liquidity and thus of transaction costs, as well as when active investment strategies are profitable. The book then explains how managers must measure and control transaction costs to perform well. Electronic trading systems and electronic trading strategies now dominate trading in exchange markets throughout the world. The book identifies why speed is of such great importance to electronic traders, how they obtain it, and the trading strategies they use to exploit it. Finally, the book analyzes many issues associated with electronic trading that currently concern practitioners and regulators.

With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris, and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future. In March of 2006, four of the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. On that night, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a new breed, the quants. Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz--technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers--had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino. The quants helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Few realized, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster. Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize--and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast.