scholarly journals A material political economy: Automated Trading Desk and price prediction in high-frequency trading

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Share Price ◽  
High Frequency Trading ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Price Changes ◽  
Price Prediction ◽  
Political Economic

This article contains the first detailed historical study of one of the new high-frequency trading (HFT) firms that have transformed many of the world’s financial markets. The study, of Automated Trading Desk (ATD), one of the earliest and most important such firms, focuses on how ATD’s algorithms predicted share price changes. The article argues that political-economic struggles are integral to the existence of some of the ‘pockets’ of predictable structure in the otherwise random movements of prices, to the availability of the data that allow algorithms to identify these pockets, and to the capacity of algorithms to use these predictions to trade profitably. The article also examines the role of HFT algorithms such as ATD’s in the epochal, fiercely contested shift in US share trading from ‘fixed-role’ markets towards ‘all-to-all’ markets.

A DYSFUNCTIONAL ROLE OF HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING IN ELECTRONIC MARKETS

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (03) ◽  
pp. 1250022 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT A. JARROW ◽  
PHILIP PROTTER
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Electronic Markets ◽  
High Frequency Trading ◽  
Common Signal

This paper shows that high frequency trading may play a dysfunctional role in financial markets. Contrary to arbitrageurs who make financial markets more efficient by taking advantage of and thereby eliminating mispricings, high frequency traders can create a mispricing that they unknowingly exploit to the disadvantage of ordinary investors. This mispricing is generated by the collective and independent actions of high frequency traders, coordinated via the observation of a common signal.

scholarly journals Short sellers: Villains or scapegoats?

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-401
Author(s):  
Robert Wearing ◽  
Carmen A. Li
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
News Media ◽  
Share Price ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Information Function ◽  
Share Prices ◽  
Short Sellers ◽  
High Share

This paper discusses the role of short sellers and the concerns which are expressed in the news media about their activities. In particular, it examines the problem of optimism in analysts’ forecasts which might initially lead to ‘high’ share prices and the limitations of both agency and stakeholder theory in providing short sellers with a legitimate role. With the help of the existing empirical literature, we argue that short sellers can be regarded as carrying out a useful information function in financial markets. Indeed, encouraging short sellers to operate more effectively in the market as well as requiring fuller disclosure of their activities could provide a useful antidote to some of the share price rises which have been seen in recent years in failing companies

scholarly journals What is a 'Real' Transaction? Infrastructures, relations and Spoofing in High-Frequency Trading

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Pablo Pardo Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
High Frequency Trading ◽  
Market Behavior ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Market Participants

Although an old and rare practice, spoofing has re-emerged as a subject ofintense debate within modern financial markets. An activity entailing thefraudulent creation of orders to buy and sell securities with the purposeof manipulating the market, spoofing highlights the multiple and complexmoral valences of contemporary, automated, finance. In this paper, I studyspoofing as an opportunity to understand markets and their relations ofexchange. In particular, by extending Weberian metaphors of markets asmoral and organizational communities, I examine how the courts and marketparticipants distinguish the ‘false’ transactions of spoofing from the‘real’ exchanges of 'normal' market behavior. Combining Marilyn Strathern’stheoretical discussion of the anthropological relation with recentliteratures on infrastructures and markets, I argue that the perceivedreality of transactions is a product of how novel forms of economicknowledge are able to make sense of ‘taken for granted’ behavioral patternswithin digital platforms of market action. The intent that constitutes‘real’ trades is therefore a product of how market participants, economicexperts and the courts interpret the operational underbelly of markets andthe relations that they produce.

scholarly journals High frequency trading and comovement in financial markets

2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Malceniece ◽  
Kārlis Malcenieks ◽  
Tālis J. Putniņš
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
High Frequency Trading

scholarly journals DOES SPEED MATTER? THE ROLE OF HIGH‐FREQUENCY TRADING FOR ORDER BOOK RESILIENCY

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 933-964
Author(s):  
Benjamin Clapham ◽  
Martin Haferkorn ◽  
Kai Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
High Frequency Trading ◽  
Order Book

The Regulatory, Technology and Market ‘Dark Arts Trilogy’ of High Frequency Trading: A Research Agenda

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy L. Currie ◽  
Jonathan J. M. Seddon
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
High Frequency Trading ◽  
Algorithmic Trading ◽  
Flash Crash ◽  
Financial Trading ◽  
Dow Jones Industrial Average

Computerization has transformed financial markets with high frequency trading displacing human activity with proprietary algorithms to lower latency, reduce intermediary costs, enhance liquidity and increase transaction speed. Following the “Flash Crash” of 2010 which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunge 1000 points within minutes, high frequency trading has come under the radar of multi-jurisdictional regulators. Combining a review of the extant literature on high frequency trading with empirical data from interviews with financial traders, computer experts and regulators, we develop concepts of regulatory adaptation, technology asymmetry and market ambiguity to illustrate the ‘dark art’ of high frequency trading. Findings show high frequency trading is a multi-faceted, complex and secretive practice. It is implicated in market events, but correlation does not imply causation, as isolating causal mechanisms from interconnected automated financial trading is highly challenging for regulators who seek to monitor algorithmic trading across multiple jurisdictions. This article provides information systems researchers with a set of conceptual tools for analysing high frequency trading.

High-Frequency Trading and Conflict in the Financial Markets

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 270-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricky Cooper ◽  
Jonathan Seddon ◽  
Ben Van Vliet
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
High Frequency Trading ◽  
Market Makers ◽  
Market Participants ◽  
Software Vendor ◽  
Traditional Market ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Way

The last few decades has seen an ever-increasing growth in the way activities are productized and associated with a financial cost. This phenomenon, termed financialization, spans all areas including government, finance, health and manufacturing. Recent developments within finance over that past decade have radically altered the way trading occurs. This paper analyses high-frequency trading (HFT) as a necessary component of the infrastructure that makes financialization possible. Through interviews with HFT firms, a software vendor, regulators and banks, the effects of HFT on market efficiency, and its impact on costs to long-term investors are explored. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the conflict that exists between HFT and traditional market makers in today's fragmented markets. This paper argues that society should be unconcerned with this conflict and should instead focus on the effects these participants have on the long-term investors, for whom the markets ultimately exist. In order to facilitate the best outcomes, regulation should be simple, aimed at keeping participants’ behavior stable, and the interactions among them transparent and straightforward. Financialization and HFT are inextricably linked, and society is best served by ensuring that the creative energy of these market participants is directed on providing liquidity and removing inefficiencies.

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