Schneiderman (and Einstein) Pressure High-Speed Trading
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The most important rules governing high-speed electronic trading weren’t written by market regulators, New York’s attorney general or a computer whiz. They were formulated a century ago when Albert Einstein figured out nothing could travel faster than light.
High-frequency traders, seeking to exploit money-making opportunities first, are moving information at velocities approaching Einstein’s barrier. The competition has become so extreme that earlier this month one vendor published a press release to boast it had shaved 12 millionths of a second off the transmission time between New Jersey and Illinois.