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In today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions.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.

Every physicist and most non-physicists have heard that no object or signal can move faster than the speed of light in a vacuum c. However, when we study the literature on Einstein's special relativity theory carefully, we will find a less well-known 2c speed limit (double light speed limit) that is also fully consistent with special relativity theory. In this paper we will provide a chronological historical overview of the literature on the 2c speed limit and then show how this speed limit has recently started to play a role in financial markets via high-speed trading. This does not conflict in any way with the concept that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. However, even in the special relativity literature we have described here, there are several different velocities, depending on who the observer is and what the speed is relative to.

This book explores light and other types of waves, using this as a window into other aspects of physics. It emphasizes a conceptual understanding, using examples chosen from everyday life and the natural environment. For example, it explains how hummingbird feathers create shimmering colors, how musical instruments produce sound, and how atoms stick together to form molecules. It provides a unique perspective on physics by emphasizing commonalities among different types of waves, including string waves, water waves, sound waves, light waves, the matter waves of quantum mechanics, and the gravitational waves of general relativity. This book is targeted toward college non-science majors, advanced high school students, and adults who are curious about our physical world. It assumes familiarity with algebra but no further mathematics and is classroom-ready with many worked examples, exercises, exploratory puzzles, and appendices to support students from a variety of backgrounds.

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access. The increasing capacity of digital networks and computing power, together with the resulting connectivity and availability of "big data", are impacting financial systems worldwide with rapidly advancing deep-learning algorithms and distributed ledger technologies. They transform the structure and performance of financial markets, the service proposition of financial products, the organization of payment systems, the business models of banks, insurance companies and other financial service providers, as well as the design of money supply regimes and central banking. This book, The Future of Financial Systems in the Digital Age: Perspectives from Europe and Japan, brings together leading scholars, policymakers, and regulators from Japan and Europe, all with a profound and long professional background in the field of finance, to analyze the digital transformation of the financial system. The authors analyze the impact of digitalization on the financial system from different perspectives such as transaction costs and with regard to specific topics like the potential of digital and blockchain-based currency systems, the role of algorithmic trading, obstacles in the use of cashless payments, the challenges of regulatory oversight, and the transformation of banking business models. The collection of chapters offers insights from Japanese and European discourses, approaches, and experiences on a topic otherwise dominated by studies about developments in the USA and China.

A plain English guide to high frequency trading and off-exchange trading practices In Dark Pools & High Frequency Trading For Dummies, senior private banker Jukka Vaananen has created an indispensable and friendly guide to what really goes on inside dark pools, what rewards you can reap as an investor and how wider stock markets and pricing may be affected by dark pools. Written with the classic For Dummies style that has become a hallmark of the brand, Vaananen makes this complex material easy to understand with an insider's look into the topic. The book takes a detailed look at the pros and the cons of trading in dark pools, and how this type of trading differs from more traditional routes. It also examines how dark pools are currently regulated, and how the regulatory landscape may be changing. Learn what types of dark pools exist, and how a typical transaction works Discover the rules and regulations for dark pools, and some of the downsides to trading Explore how dark pools can benefit investors and banks, and who can trade in them Recognize the ins and outs of automated and high frequency trading Because dark pools allow companies to trade stocks anonymously and away from the public exchange, they are not subject to the peaks and troughs of the stock market, and have only recently begun to take off in a big way. Written with investors and finance students in mind, Dark Pools & High Frequency Trading For Dummies is the ultimate reference guide for anyone looking to understand dark pools and dark liquidity, including the different order types and key HFT strategies.

Covering the Cosmos from before the Big Bang through to the creation of our universe and up to but not including our arrival on stage; our will is not yet imposed, we had no hand, act nor part in its provisions, beyond investigating to understand what has been delivered us. The many aspects of the Cosmos are melded, in a headline driven style, to paint a cohesive picture as well as allowing the reader choose to delve further where they may choose to paint their personal picture. Cosmos – includes; • The creation mechanism for our Universe and why there exists a possible Multiverse. • The creation mechanisms of the galaxies with their diversity of Star types. • The space exploration of our Solar System. • The Earth and Moon from their birth to their life driving engines for our planet. • The evolutionary processes that led to our arrival on the planet. • Our natural world with its great events. • Documentary video links on all topics of the book are included. The story is factual in manner, in the proper tradition of reporting, no personal opinions are expressed. The life stories of the standout personalities, in text and video, without whom what is now known, could not have been unraveled, in the case of Cosmos, they are; • Galileo Galilei • Isaac Newton • Albert Einstein • Charles Darwin This is a Video Book, vBook, beyond its text there are 150+ video titles, 100+ viewing hours, downloaded and stored locally on your computer, to be able to watch anytime, offline, without the need for local internet connection. Google ‘Cosmos’ and you get about 27,800,000 search results, so over these last several years I’ve searched out the best documentary videos with their hyperlinks included here, blending their content to report cohesively, supplementing, where appropriate, from Wikipedia and also include those hyperlinks for readers wanting to delve further. The ‘List of Contents’ runs to 6 levels to provide a form of map to the reader as the reporting sequence is not a mere chronology of Cosmic events, it delves, as necessary into the stories as to how the events became understood to us. There is a 7th level, hyperlinked, at its base, which brings further background content, from Wikipedia, to those who choose to read further into any of the topics. The ‘Index’ allows navigation for the reader who has specific interests to investigate through the fabric of the report. The ‘Text’ is structured to 4 levels beginning with the primary, headline driven, main body content followed by relevant Wikipedia extracts, indented in purple, for those choosing to read further into a particular topic through to hyperlinked Wikipedia - Full Article text within the book and in turn out to the website itself. For the reader that wants to stay with the big picture, main body content, there is a “Skip” link to take you past each of the extracts, on to the next headline title and main body content. There are 150+ video content links delivering 100+ hours of viewing time, of the best documentary film available online. The main sequence structure is; • Cosmology – Universe & Multiverse • Geology – Earth & Moon • Biology – Life – Plant & Animal • Ecology – Evolution & Environment – Plant, Animal & Human Special Edition There is also a Special Edition of this book available for US$49.95 which streams all video content from a secure Cloud Drive; therefore, video content cannot be removed by third party video platform providers such as YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo….. This Standard Edition streams from these. The Cloud Drive Server also allows you conveniently download to your local drive, as much video content as you choose, to watch, offline, at a time that best suits you. To view or purchase, paste the books ASIN: B00LEWY5WW into the Kindle Store search box. If you've any queries, feel welcome to contact bangtoeternityandbetwixt@gmail.com

The new international bestseller from the Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The World is Flat - this is an essential and entertaining field guide to thriving in the twenty-first century. 'As a guide for perplexed Westerners, this book is very hard to beat . . . Thank You for Being Late is a master class in explaining ... After your session with Dr. Friedman, you have a much better idea of the forces that are upending your world, how they work together - and what people, companies and governments can do to prosper' John Micklethwait, The New York Times Book Review 'The globe-trotting New York Times columnist's most famous book was about the world being flat. This one is all about the world being fast ... His main piece of advice for individuals, corporations, and countries is clear: Take a deep breath and adapt. This world isn't going to wait for you' Fortune We all sense it - something big is going on. You feel it in your workplace. You feel it when you talk to your children. You can't miss it when you read the newspapers or watch the news. Our lives are speeding up - and it is dizzying. In Thank You for Being Late, a work unlike any he has attempted before, Thomas L. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them. Friedman's thesis is that to understand the twenty-first century, you need to understand that the planet's three largest forces - Moore's law (technology), the market (globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss) - are all accelerating at once, transforming the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics and community. An extraordinary release of energy is reshaping everything from how we hail a taxi to the fate of nations to our most intimate relationships. It is creating vast new opportunities for individuals and small groups to save the world - or perhaps to destroy it. Thank You for Being Late is a work of contemporary history that serves as a field manual for how to think about this era of accelerations. It's also an argument for 'being late' - for pausing to appreciate this amazing historical epoch we're passing through and reflecting on its possibilities and dangers. He shows us how we can anchor ourselves as individuals in the eye of this storm, and how communities can create a 'topsoil of trust' to do the same for their increasingly diverse and digital populations. Written with his trademark vitality, wit, and optimism, and with unequalled access to many of those at the forefront of the changes he is describing all over the world, Thank You for Being Late is Friedman's most ambitious book - and an essential guide to the present and the future.

Global capital markets have undergone fundamental transformations in recent years and, as a result, have become extraordinarily complex and opaque. Trading space is no longer measured in minutes or seconds but in time units beyond human perception: milliseconds, microseconds, and even nanoseconds. Technological advances have thus scaled up imperceptible and previously irrelevant time differences into operationally manageable and enormously profitable business opportunities for those with the proper high-tech trading tools. These tools include the fastest private communication and trading lines, the most powerful computers and sophisticated algorithms capable of speedily analysing incoming news and trading data and determining optimal trading strategies in microseconds, as well as the possession of gigantic collections of historic and real-time market data. Fragmented capital markets are also becoming a rapidly growing reality in Europe and Asia, and are an established feature of U.S. trading. This raises urgent market governance issues that have largely been overlooked. Global Algorithmic Capital Markets seeks to understand how recent market transformations are affecting core public policy objectives such as investor protection and reduction of systemic risk, as well as fairness, efficiency, and transparency. The operation and health of capital markets affect all of us and have profound implications for equality and justice in society. This unique set of chapters by leading scholars, industry insiders, and regulators discusses ways to strengthen market governance for the benefit of society at whole.

Never have financial markets been subjected to a period of change as rapid and extensive as took place from the 1970s onwards. Ranald C. Michie provides an authoritative account of this upheaval based on a careful reading of the Financial Times over the last four decades.