Wiki So Far

For our class wiki contribution, I have been trying to become familiar with Wiki's layout and its various functions. Editing in Wiki is something new for me and I have learned a new skill in this process. 

In terms of researching the topics, I have been editing the investment portion of Baruch's new media page, and I chose to add ’High Frequency Trading', or HFT in short, as a new topic under that page. This is an important topic because most of today's market activities are done by computer algorithms, instead of human traders, and such change can be interesting and challenging at the same time. 

Few years ago, no one knows what HFT is, or even heard of the term. Publication such as Scott Patterson's-"Dark Pool", or Michael Lewis's- "Flash Boys" allowed the ordinary folks a glimpse into this world and how huge money is made in split seconds. Titled "Dark Pool", it is a narrative about a how a bunch of astrophysicists, or mathematicians, who previously where left in the dusk for being geeky, made extraordinary amount of money in a very short time. 

Because every second, or rather, scale down to nano-second is crucial for HFT, finding ways to reduce the trading time to zero has been compare with a journey of finding the holy grail, for many other market participants. Just to show what these HFT firms can do to cut down a milli-nano second of execution advantage, a Chicago-based HFT firm bought about a few acres of land in the sub-urban just to ensure the smooth relay of signals between Chicago and New York. The benefit associated with buying the land outweighs the costs over the long run, and the company's founder established himself as one of the most accomplished fund manager. 

In my wiki contribution, I will provide an overview of what is HFT, how it works, and some of the notable events and impact of HFT to ordinary investors.