141–150 of 223 posts
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this is what the term "front running" means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running
I'm familiar with the legal definition. This behavior, however, is identical to it in spirit and moral character.
You've entered no such agreement with other market participants.
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How did you know in the past where the market was going to be? All that was ever available was information about past trades, and perhaps open orders in the market that could have already been removed at any time?
Sorry, I could have phrased it better. When I said "where the market is going to be" I meant that from one second to the next, you knew it wouldn't move that far. In the past, when you called up your broker to buy a stock, he could give you a quote (say 12.35) and you tell him to buy, you know that the price will be the quoted amount. (Market in finance lingo in this case means current price of the stock) If you need…
You can still get that pricing level almost everywhere by quoting through the market at that price difference.
https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/hft_apology.html
https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/hft_apology2.html
https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2014/how_to_not_get_rippe...
A basic summary is that market-makers add liquidity to the market and profit from their bid-ask spread, increasing the execution-speed and depth of the market. Many of the 'predatory' pricing strategies attributed to them by Lewis and others appear to be impossible when you try and write down the pseudo-code + order book that corresponds to the allegation.
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Using ntp or whatever the new variant is is also standard, which as I recall can hit sub-microsecond consistency on a wide area network with good hardware. So yeah, not new.
PTP - Precision Time Protocol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Time_Protocol . It requires hardware support, and a stable isolator inside of the machines.
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PTP - Precision Time Protocol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Time_Protocol . It requires hardware support, and a stable isolator inside of the machines.
Little know fact, you can use the GPS constellation to get atomic level precision time nearly anywhere on earth. Using an Atomic clock is purely to show off to investors/a red herring.
Particularly if you're using it to sync between two different time zones that could well be looking at different satellites.
However, I don't know how much inaccuracy is introduced and whether it would have too much of an effect for the purposes of Google, et al.
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That exact strategy is also mentioned in Flash Boys, in the form of THOR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THOR_(trading_platform)
Keep in mind that Flash Boys is not worth the paper it's printed on. (See https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23570025-flash-boys )
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Generally speaking, as I'm not a patent lawyer either, the same technique applied to two different problem domains can generate two valid patents. The historical example is ship and automobile windscreen wiper.
But they're both in the software domain. Not to argue with you, but I don't see the problem any different from trying to synchronize two commits in a database. The same technique is not limited to Spanner or algorithmic trading, but other fields as well. It's not so much different from DHT or other algorithms, which have applications in multiple domains.
You could argue ships and automobiles are in the same transportation-domain ?
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Little know fact, you can use the GPS constellation to get atomic level precision time nearly anywhere on earth. Using an Atomic clock is purely to show off to investors/a red herring.
I would've thought that GPS is too unreliable due to the deliberate inaccuracy? Only the US military have the clean signal. Particularly if you're using it to sync between two different time zones that could well be looking at different satellites. However, I don't know how much inaccuracy is introduced and whether it would have too much of an effect for the purposes of Google, et al.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/15/technology/pentagon-lets-c...
The errors you see in your mobile phone's positioning are due to signal problems (reflections, etc) and the relatively limited capabilities of the cheap GPS radio in your phone. A decent GPS receiver with a well-positioned antenna will get a highly accurate clock.
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No its not at all like that. Its a synchronization strategy so that orders hit all exchanges at the same time.
I assume the traders can't place orders with time of execution (to be executed at the specified time, kept secret until then). If the market accepted the time of execution from traders and kept the trades secret until they were executed, then there would be no need for these patents.
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I don't know why you need a great clock either, if you have stable, symmetric network paths from a central location to all your servers colocated at exchanges, you can predict the delay between sending from the server and getting to the exchange, you can split your order and send it to the various exchanges with appropriate delays and know that everything will arrive at the same time. If you're wrong, it's going to s…
Network delay variance over distances is much greater than the timescales at which HFTs function. That's why HFT equipment is always so close to the exchange itself.