Trading at the Speed of Light - by Donald MacKenzie (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of how many of our most important financial markets have transformed from physical trading floors on which human beings trade face-to-face, into electronic systems within which computer algorithms trade with each other. Tracing the emergence of ultrafast, automated, high-frequency trading (HFT) since the early 2000s, Donald MacKenzie draws particular attention to the importance of what he deems the 'material political economy' of twenty-first century finance. Fast transmission of price data used to involve fibre-optic cables, but the strands in such cables are made of materials (usually a specialised form of glass) which slow light down to around two-thirds of its speed in free space. By contrast, microwave and other wireless signals used in HFT travel through the atmosphere at nearly full light speed. At these nanosecond speeds, the physical nature of information transmission and the precise spatial location of the equipment involved become hugely important, thus creating inevitable pinch points in the system. MacKenzie details the ways in which these pinch points - individual frequency bands, specific locations on the roofs of computer data centres, and particular sites for microwave towers - are especially advantageous, making it possible for those who control them to profit from that control. The book draws from over 300 interviews conducted with high-frequency traders around the world, the people who supply them with technological systems and communication links, exchange staff and regulators, as well as with others who function within markets that have not yet become dominated by HFT. MacKenzie focuses most closely upon the four main sites of international HFT - Chicago, New York, Amsterdam, and London - and examines both the technology and the politics underpinning modern financial markets"--

Book Synopsis

A remarkable look at how the growth, technology, and politics of high-frequency trading have altered global financial markets

In today's financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions. Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of this epic transformation. Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading--automated high-frequency trading or HFT--began and then spread throughout the world. HFT has brought new efficiency to global trading, but has also created an unrelenting race for speed, leading to a systematic, subterranean battle among HFT algorithms.

In HFT, time is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second), and in a nanosecond the fastest possible signal--light in a vacuum--can travel only thirty centimeters, or roughly a foot. That makes HFT exquisitely sensitive to the length and transmission capacity of the cables connecting computer servers to the exchanges' systems and to the location of the microwave towers that carry signals between computer datacenters. Drawing from more than 300 interviews with high-frequency traders, the people who supply them with technological and communication capabilities, exchange staff, regulators, and many others, MacKenzie reveals the extraordinary efforts expended to speed up every aspect of trading. He looks at how in some markets big banks have fought off the challenge from HFT firms, and how exchanges sometimes engineer technical systems to favor certain types of algorithms over others.

Focusing on the material, political, and economic characteristics of high-frequency trading, Trading at the Speed of Light offers a unique glimpse into its influence on global finance and where it could lead us in the future.

Review Quotes

"I loved this book. . . . Trading at the Speed of Light is an amazing, detailed account of why material reality matters for virtual outcomes, and conversely, in the financial markets. Everybody with the slightest interest in modern finance should read it."---Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist

"Winner of the Bronze Medal in Business Technology, Axiom Business Book Awards"

About the Author

Donald MacKenzie is professor of sociology at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance and An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets.