On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 09:08:27 -0500, Brett Frankenberger said:
What it's about is allowing traders to arbitrage between markets. When product A is traded in, say, London, and product B is traded in New York, and their prices are correlated, you can make money if your program running in NY can learn the price of product B in London a few milliseconds before the other guy's program. And you can make money if your program running in London can learn the price of product A in NY a few milliseconds before the other guy's program.
If you can money off those milliseconds, then some government supervision is in order - that market is too damned volatile. I see a lot of people proposing ways to make it work, when what modern civilization needs is some market controls to make it *NOT* work. Didn't we learn our lesson the *last* time the financial system almost collapsed because financial wizards found a new way to slice and dice stuff?