Why trading on Wall Street is *really* not what it used to be...
From the co-heads of Themis Trading, via The Big Picture, comes this great post on why trading on Wall-Street trading is not what you think it is (and certainly not what it used to be) Congratulations on your IPO filing. We understand that you are faced with a difficult decision soon on where to list your stock. [...] We hate to break the bad news to you but the fact is, in today’s market, it doesn’t matter where you list. Your stock is about to become one of the biggest casino chips on Wall Street. Ever hear the terms rebate arbitrage or latency arbitrage? Ever hear of colocation? Do you know what an exchange private data feed is? How about an actionable IOI or a dark pool? We bet you have probably never heard of these terms (maybe you have been too busy coding lately or ducking those Winklevoss twins). These terms are really what stock trading is all about nowadays. Your stock will now be traded by high frequency traders who have an average holding period of 22 second...