2019-02-04

[public] 2.74M views, 84.7K likes, 741 dislikes audio only

Tom Scott

High-frequency traders have a few tactics on stock exchanges: but simply put, they gather price information faster than anyone else, sometimes even faster than the markets themselves, and use that to make a tiny profit many, many, many times. There are all sorts of solutions: but it turns out there's a simpler one that involves physics.

Thanks to Ronan and all the team at IEX - you can find out more about them here: https://iextrading.com/ or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/IEX

I fact-checked Ronan's claim about the SEC white paper because it seemed a bit too good to be true, but he's right: see Hu, E. (2018). Intentional Access Delays, Market Quality, and Price Discovery: Evidence from IEX Becoming an Exchange. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://www.sec.gov/files/07feb18_hu_iex_becoming_an_exchange.pdf [PDF]

Edited by Michelle Martin (@mrsmmartin)

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