股票市场高频交易

2011-9-30

A Closer Look at High-Frequency Trading

近距离审视股票市场高频交易

(1) Once, stocks were traded through the open outcry公开喊价system, with men shouting share prices直接报出股价on the floors of stock exchanges.

(2) But the sights and sounds of stock traders furiously疯狂exchanging securities交易证券has mostly disappeared. They have been replaced by fast, interconnected互联computers.

(3) Joe Saluzzi is a head of equity trading证券交易部门at Themis Trading in New Jersey.

(4) JOE SALUZZI: "The equity market has changed. It's no longer what you see on TV, it's no longer guys with colored jackets红马甲running around the floor交易所anymore. That's the show, that's the TV studio. The equity market is a bunch一堆of co-located相互协作computers strung together by a bunch of wires通过电缆连接, everyone trying to race to zero高速运转. The speed of light is the goal — the speed of light! That's what we're looking at关注now."

(5) Computers can process stock trades处理股票交易in thousandths of a second. Andrew Haines of Gain Capital嘉盛集团is an online broker网上经纪人.

(6) ANDREW HAINES: "A millisecond can mean millions of dollars to the success of your strategy. Having a one, two, three-millisecond advantage领先over other traders may mean that you get into a trade at a preferable price."

(7) Andrew Haines says an estimated seventy percent of all stock股票trades are

high-frequency trades made with computers. Stocks may be held持有for only seconds. But fast trades are also blamed for big moves剧烈波动in stock prices.

(8) On May sixth two thousand ten, the leading measure主要指数of American stocks 美国股市briefly fell nearly 1000 points, or about nine percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average道琼斯工业指数then recovered much of those losses by the end of trading that day.

(9) The Securities and Exchange Commission证券交易委员会ordered steps采取措施to prevent future "flash crashes闪跌" like that one. Joel Hasbrouck of New York University says those steps are working.

(10) JOEL HASBROUCK: "They're called circuit-breakers熔断机制, and basically what they mean is that when a stock has moved by a large amount in a short period of time, there's a trading halt暂停交易."

(11)Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading says the main problem with high-speed trading is an unbalanced market市场不平衡.

(12) JOE SALUZZI: "The stock market used to be a predictor of the future economy未来经济的风向标. Now I think the stock market is a backwards predictor反向的风向标. It doesn't tell you, it's not forecasting. It's forecasting the next microsecond微秒move."

(13) But Joel Hasbrouck says high-speed trading can, in fact, reduce sharp rises or drops in stock prices.

(14) JOEL HASBROUCK: "In normal circumstances, high-frequency traders act as