What is 'Ultrafast Trading'

A lucrative and highly competitive method of stock trading that uses special software that works in milliseconds to make trades in reaction to market changes. This type of trading has been criticized for worsening stock swings and for unfairly manipulating stock prices. The software's advocates say it improves trading efficiency.

Also known as "high frequency trading."

Explaining 'Ultrafast Trading'

Ultrafast trading has also given rise to civil and criminal lawsuits because the highly paid programmers hired by Wall Street firms to develop the software, which takes years and costs millions in salaries alone, are believed to take the code with them when they switch companies, which is a great liablity to their former employers.

Further Reading

Drilling through the Allegheny Mountains: Liquidity, materiality and high-frequency trading
www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
… Superconnected, Complex and Ultrafast: Governance of Hyperfunctionality in Financial Markets. Victor Galaz, Jon Pierre … Increased trading with financial instruments, new actors and novel technologies are changing the nature of financial markets making trade faster, more …

An ecological/evolutionary perspective on high-frequency trading
www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
… Superconnected, Complex and Ultrafast: Governance of Hyperfunctionality in Financial Markets. Victor Galaz, Jon Pierre … Increased trading with financial instruments, new actors and novel technologies are changing the nature of financial markets making trade faster, more …

The development mechanisms investigation of ultrafast processes in the economy
heinonline.org [PDF]
… Superconnected, Complex and Ultrafast: Governance of Hyperfunctionality in Financial Markets. Victor Galaz, Jon Pierre … Increased trading with financial instruments, new actors and novel technologies are changing the nature of financial markets making trade faster, more …

'Making','taking'and the material political economy of algorithmic trading
www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
… Superconnected, Complex and Ultrafast: Governance of Hyperfunctionality in Financial Markets. Victor Galaz, Jon Pierre … Increased trading with financial instruments, new actors and novel technologies are changing the nature of financial markets making trade faster, more …

Financial black swans driven by ultrafast machine ecology
arxiv.org [PDF]
… Superconnected, Complex and Ultrafast: Governance of Hyperfunctionality in Financial Markets. Victor Galaz, Jon Pierre … Increased trading with financial instruments, new actors and novel technologies are changing the nature of financial markets making trade faster, more …

High-frequency trading, algorithmic finance and the Flash Crash: reflections on eventalization
www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
… Superconnected, Complex and Ultrafast: Governance of Hyperfunctionality in Financial Markets. Victor Galaz, Jon Pierre … Increased trading with financial instruments, new actors and novel technologies are changing the nature of financial markets making trade faster, more …

Financial news and market panics in the age of high-frequency sentiment trading algorithms
journals.sagepub.com [PDF]
… Superconnected, Complex and Ultrafast: Governance of Hyperfunctionality in Financial Markets. Victor Galaz, Jon Pierre … Increased trading with financial instruments, new actors and novel technologies are changing the nature of financial markets making trade faster, more …