High-Frequency Follies

摘要

A dark vulture hovers over markets, ready to swoop down and cause major damage to your portfolio. I'm speaking of high-frequency trading, or HFT, as it's called. Dozens of firms, made up of scientists, information technology developers and math whizzes, have armed themselves with the fastest computers and most sophisticated al gorithms out there. HFT firms execute orders with stunning speed, often as fast as four milliseconds. While they represent only about 2% of the 20,000 operating brokerage firms, they account for nearly two-thirds of all volume on the New York Stock Exchange and some other bourses.