High-frequency trading (HFT) uses quantitative investment computer programs to hold short-term positions in equities, options, futures, ETFs, currencies, and all other financial instruments that possess electronic trading capability. (Some securities, like Credit Default Swaps, for example, cannot be traded electronically, and are incompatible with investment algorithms.)
Aiming to capture just a fraction of a penny per share or currency unit on every trade, high-frequency traders move in and out of such short-term positions several times each day. Fractions of a penny accumulate fast to produce significantly positive results at the end of every day.
"High-frequency trading" became a buzzword in 2009, when Goldman Sachs accused one of their ex-employees of stealing their "cash cow," a sophisticated computer program capable of generating millions of dollars in trading profits over short periods of time. Yet, HFT has been around since the early 1980s, when several stock exchanges first decided to experiment with electronic trading. Since the 1980s, HFT has been growing in scope, speed and complexity.
At the heart of HFT is a simple idea that properly programmed computers are better traders than humans. Computers can easily read and process amounts of data so large it is inconceivable to humans. For example, frequently traded financial securities such as EUR/USD exchange rate can produce well over 100 distinct quotes each second. Each quote, or "tick," carries unique information about concurrent market conditions. And while a dedicated team of human traders may be able to detect some tradeable irregularities in such fast-paced data over time, human brains are no match for computers that can accurately resolve and act upon all minute information infusions in the markets. Add to that the fact that computers seldom get ill, are easily replaceable, and have no emotions. Oh, and they've become really cheap.
The complexity of computer technology currently required by many HFT systems pales in comparison with that required to play modern video games. As video game purveyors drive the prices of advanced computer technology down, high-frequency trading becomes increasingly affordable to anyone with an inclination for quantitative analysis and programming. Call this a .com 4.0 revolution: the latest technology long deployed in many other industries has finally arrived on Wall Street.
Some high-frequency trading strategies are quantitative investing strategies deployed at high speeds. Other strategies, specific to high-frequency trading, work with market minutia, known as "microstructure." In both cases, high-frequency traders feed off small intraday variations in prices and do not impact long-term investors.
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Irene Aldridge: How Profitable Are High-Frequency Strategies?
High frequency trading has been taking Wall Street by storm, and colloquial evidence suggests that a majority of high-frequency managers delivered positive returns through the most recent financial crises.
http://www.wallstmemo.com/news/2010/8/4/market-insight-high-frequency-trading-draws-high-levels-of-c.html
In reality the price is going up. Colocating, exchange memberships, low-latency server based execution, all of which are pricing out most underfunded traders and market makers. At minimum it will cost $50k+/month per exchange and you're still not likely to have the latency to compete. The result for not paying top dollar for speed is you get run over. Meanwhile certain exchanges continue to allow those willing to pay top dollar not only a license to steal but a monopoly in the products they trade. HFT 's are anti-competitive. Wheres Ralph Nader when you need him?
"Our equity market is being controlled by machines that are nothing more than two bit, SOES bandits."
http://www.zerohedge.com/content/observations-high-frequency-trading
We have a simple math problem here. If HFTs are extracting $billions (and they are) in profits from the equity market, that is capital being extracted from a zero-sum game. Like a long-term investor, compound this tollbooth/tax over 10 years.
Suggesting that the infrastructure necessary for HFT is low enough in cost for a retail investor (meaning every single person in the US who invests directly in a company) is singularly preposterous. It also shows a complete disregard for a level field for those same people.
Speculating that price discovery is "better" with HFT, is also unsupported by a non-existence of data. Institutions may better the volume-weighted-average-price, but they can't say it wasn't artificially moved by HFT.
Data feeds are being sold to dealer/brokers and hedge funds. It is now crucial to the exchange's business models. HFTs never answer the question about a clear capability for frontrunning, they just say "frontrunning is illegal" as if it applies to somebody else. As long as the order ID number remains in the data for each bid/ask, institutions are sitting ducks for HFTs.
2/3 of market volume is HFT. Cancelled orders have increased 30 fold since 2005, as HFTs move the quote, then cancel the orders, in micro-seconds.
No entity can enter an environment without changing it.
Fanned - with questions.
Got through your excellent post until: "As long as the order ID number remains in the data for each bid/ask, institutions are sitting ducks for HFTs. What is the order ID number? Used to be involved in investments and liked operations - but too distantly to understand this reference to an order ID number.
Secondly, I have begun no notice that, say, one in fifteen of my transactions are cancelled to be reinstated with a different settlement date and with nominal changes in carrying value/cost basis. I've been bugging my broker about this and he hasn't offered a definitive explanation. I'm going to start tracking the changes to determine if I end up on the short end and was wondering if this form of cancellation is what one might consider "corrections" of human errors or the result of HFT?
Sorry to be a pest - just love keeping up with the ops game.
The economic immorality of Wall Street trading is that it has morphed into a gambling system of betting that certain scales will rise or fall. The underlying value of the asset is irrelevant.
This "something for nothing" trading quest has corrupted millions of Americans. Its contagion has spread to the entire world. Through computers, if is possible to wreck an entire economic system in a day's span. In the quest for the fast buck, Golden Sachs manipulated the grain market in 2005-2008 to starve a billion people world wide for a time.
Are you sure about this? I doubt that it's true.
This is like listening to the BP man tell us that all oil floats and we do not need to worry about the toxic plumes underwater.
HFT gives monsters like Goldman a huge advantage, like hunting herd animals from a helicopter. And sometimes the herd panics and runs off a cliff.
at the least---
With HFT they are able to capture changes ahead of individual investors. They add to our overhead, reduce our gains, increase our losses.
more seriously---
As we saw recently, they can drive markets crazy, costing individuals millions as some shares fall 50%. What if you dumped Palmolive in panic and lost several dollars per share?
This practice is blatantly skewed in favor of practitioners nearest the exchange. At these speeds, a distance of city blocks can determine which orders arrive at the exchange first.
Skimming at the speed light. Neat isn't it?
Another "value-added" brought to you by the "financial innovators".
"... high-frequency traders move in and out of such short-term positions several times each day ..."
They move in and out of positions thousands of times a day and they are not short-term positions - they are arbitrage positions.
"high-frequency trading becomes increasingly affordable to anyone with an inclination for quantitative analysis and programming"
The issue is more about bandwidth than one of processing power or programming. No matter how powerful your computer or your math, unless you have immediate access to data across markets and the ability to place your own trades you cannot compete.
"high-frequency traders feed off small intraday variations in prices and do not impact long-term investors"
This is true only inasmuch as long-term investors are not damaged in the short term. In the long term they are are being mulcted, as are we all, by this blatant exercise in wealth extraction (as opposed to wealth creation).
That's an assertion with absolutely no proof behind it.
How does anyone with a shred of common sense think that this parasitic trading can
do anything remotely positive for the overall Economy?
That statement is a mathematical impossibility and a lie. Take the currency market, a clear cut zero sum market. If HFT is winning, the other players on aggregate MUST be losing. And this doesn't touch on other issues such as frontrunning (why would the major players fight to have their supercomputers AT the exchange and not in say Silicon Valley?).