A Second Is a Long Time in Finance - trading in picoseconds?

[The Straight Story]

A Second Is a Long Time in Finance

ne complaint made of the modern stock market is that it is concerned too much on the short term. News that traders are considering trading at picosecond levels would seem to prove the point.

Our sister site, Financial News, carries a report of a recent talk given in London on ever accelerating trends in high-frequency trading.

“A second is a long time in cash equities trading. Four or five years ago, trading firms started to talk of trading speeds in terms of milliseconds….

But in recent weeks trading geeks have started to talk about picoseconds in what is a truly mind-boggling concept: a picosecond is one trillionth of a second. Put another way, a picosecond is to one second what one second is to 31,700 years.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/03/03/a-second-is-a-long-time-in-finance/

[BadgerKid]

1. Referencing the Slashdot thread on this.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/03/04/0048244/Contemplating-Financial-Trading-At-Picosecond-Resolution

My comment to this is, why do I feel as if picosecond trading is going to suck even more money out of my pocket?