One of the buzz terms in the European financial markets in 2008 is "low latency", In the past year we have heard announcements from most stock exchanges about upgraded trading platforms, brokers differentiating their direct market access programs on execution speed, and no shortage of "ultra low latency" network providers promoting light-speed performance. Banks want lower latency services, but few are able to measure their own performance down to the level of granularity to test these claims. Most are talking about eliminating milliseconds, with a cadre of top firms concerned about microseconds. So how low is "low enough" and where will it all end? In the electronic trading world, performance is relative - as long as one firm has an edge over the market, competitors will strive to improve their positions, but whether this will continue to the nanosecond mark remains to be seen.
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