If you're new to this newsletter from The Prepared, (1) welcome! and (2) I don't always write about high-frequency trading, but am coincidentally writing about it twice this week thanks to this Financial Times article (paywall, sorry), which has some fascinating updates on a practice that was already pretty high-frequency ten years ago: Trades that took microseconds in 2011 are down to nanoseconds now, approaching literal light speed. Operating at the limits of possibility forces HFTs to acknowledge the physicality of information, a quality the rest of us have the luxury of forgetting when we send emails or check Instagram. "Data sent down fibre-optic cables can move extremely fast over long distances (across the Atlantic, say)—but only if those cables are straight; naturally, when light hits the side of the cable, it takes longer to arrive." The stakes just aren't as high when the data from your iMessage bounces off the side of a cable on the way to the group chat. Shortwave radio, satellites, and television frequencies are all being tested in the service of shaving additional nanoseconds off of trades.
#80: Bizarre Swamp Triangle
#80: Bizarre Swamp Triangle
#80: Bizarre Swamp Triangle
If you're new to this newsletter from The Prepared, (1) welcome! and (2) I don't always write about high-frequency trading, but am coincidentally writing about it twice this week thanks to this Financial Times article (paywall, sorry), which has some fascinating updates on a practice that was already pretty high-frequency ten years ago: Trades that took microseconds in 2011 are down to nanoseconds now, approaching literal light speed. Operating at the limits of possibility forces HFTs to acknowledge the physicality of information, a quality the rest of us have the luxury of forgetting when we send emails or check Instagram. "Data sent down fibre-optic cables can move extremely fast over long distances (across the Atlantic, say)—but only if those cables are straight; naturally, when light hits the side of the cable, it takes longer to arrive." The stakes just aren't as high when the data from your iMessage bounces off the side of a cable on the way to the group chat. Shortwave radio, satellites, and television frequencies are all being tested in the service of shaving additional nanoseconds off of trades.