In the ultra-geek world of machine-to-machine trading, the New York Stock Exchange is now measuring some of its processes in nanoseconds, or one billionth of a second.

The traders’ requirement for speed isn’t new of course. But the absolute numbers and measurement of the most precious commodity – time – have changed enormously. The ‘latency’ of information has moved from weeks to days, to hours to seconds to milliseconds. We are just at the moment in history when microseconds are becoming significant. nanoseconds and waiting for picoseconds.

Nanosecond Picture

NYSE nice work. I always thought New York would be one of the three  ! Amsterdam second !  third.. Sydney... or upcoming HK

How we (and they) did get that nanoseconds ! Define patterns in the application architecture and use add ins as your co-processors !

Create a platinum fiber ring and increase the GUID on a usefull way... (is this a precedent !) Increase your network latency and doom the CPU's

but....

When it comes to nano seconds it will take over by emotion. Someone must push the button somewhere. !

When it comes to pico seconds the buttons are taken over by the algorithm.

Again... the finance world is changing in data modelling and algorithms...  you asked for !

Nowadays the question is: what is the latency between machines and data centres? How large are your pipes? How many hops? What is the throughput of your computers? What kind of messaging do you use? What type of routers? And a more fundamental question is – where is your data centre? Each of these areas is a specialism even within the information technology field.

A very few individuals can successfully navigate all these realms......>>>>