it is right at the intersection of things you are more familiar with in tech:
aggregating user data and selling it.
people with dis-equal access to service and collecting everyone else's orders midstream and selling it:
the machine two racks away from the matching engine is selling information to the machine one rack away from the matching engine
and this goes all the way out to your broker, your etrade or robinhood who is selling all of your profile and trade data to the machine two racks away from the matching engine
it adds a lot of value for a lot of people. the actual femtosecond trade isn't what anybody cares about.
regarding the equality, it wasn't that long ago where you had dis-equal access if you couldn't physically be at the stock exchange, in fact thats where you were supposed to be if you wanted to trade. so I can't buy that argument, in isolation.
I do think it is a form of front-running, which is regulated in some capacity but very specifically worded such that your broker can't place a trade before you just because they found out you wanted to. what we have here is front-running but from different unrelated companies in the chain and all automated by machine.
aggregating user data and selling it.
people with dis-equal access to service and collecting everyone else's orders midstream and selling it:
the machine two racks away from the matching engine is selling information to the machine one rack away from the matching engine
and this goes all the way out to your broker, your etrade or robinhood who is selling all of your profile and trade data to the machine two racks away from the matching engine
it adds a lot of value for a lot of people. the actual femtosecond trade isn't what anybody cares about.
regarding the equality, it wasn't that long ago where you had dis-equal access if you couldn't physically be at the stock exchange, in fact thats where you were supposed to be if you wanted to trade. so I can't buy that argument, in isolation.
I do think it is a form of front-running, which is regulated in some capacity but very specifically worded such that your broker can't place a trade before you just because they found out you wanted to. what we have here is front-running but from different unrelated companies in the chain and all automated by machine.