Posts Tagged ‘algorithmic trading’
High-Frequency Trading Drives Communication Choices
Thursday, August 5th, 2010Level 3 Lights Low Latency Route Between London and Frankfurt
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010Level 3 Communications has created a new low-latency route between London and Frankfurt, aimed at financial market customers involved in the high-frequency trading business where milliseconds and microseconds can have significant impact on trading profits.
“We have an extensive fiber network in Europe, and there are some key financial markets in London and Frankfurt,” said Tim King, European director of transport products for Level 3. “It was a natural progression to roll out [the low-latency service] into Europe.”
Level 3 has offered a low-latency New-York-to-Chicago route for more than a year and has had low-latency trans-Atlantic routes for about a year. Customers can use a combination of low-latency links to obtain connectivity between London and New York, for example, or between Frankfurt and Chicago, King said.
Algorithmic Trading Leads to New “Cat and Mouse” Game
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Algorithmic trading seems to have lead to a high-stakes “cat and mouse” game between large mutual funds and trading firms. Muitual fund managers say “algo” traders try to detect when mutual funds are placing buy orders and move quickly to buy shares in anticipation of selling them rapidly for a profit.
Thirty-eight percent buy-side money managers—typically long-term investors—say they have a more negative view of high-frequency trading than before the flash crash, according to a recent survey by Tabb Group, while 17 percent expressed positive views, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Algorithms are expected to account for about 60 percent of stock trading this year, up from 28 percent in 2005, according to Aite Group, a Boston firm that tracks electronic trading.
An escalating arms race has been the result, with players on both sides plowing money into ever-more-powerful technology to trade effectively. The obvious move to lower-latency communications is a direct result.


