The use of computers to execute trades, often with very low latency, has increased over time, resulting in a variety of computer algorithms executing electronically targeted trading strategies at high speed. We describe the evolution of increasingly fast automated trading over the past decade...

The purpose of this paper is to compare execution prices of NYSE-listed stocks on the NYSE and on non-NYSE markets. The first conclusion of this comparison is that most of the time the NYSE had the best quote. This result does not necessarily imply that execution prices on the NYSE are better...

In response to the 1975 Congressional call for a national market system to provide a transparent link across individual markets that trade NYSE-listed stocks, the SEC caused the implementation of three electronic systems that provide a partial integration of these markets. This partial...

Why do brokers charge per-share commissions to institutional traders? What determines the commission charge? We examine commissions and order flow for a sample of institutional orders and find that most per-share commissions are concentrated at only a few price points, primarily 5 and 6 cents...

Modern physics has demonstrated that matter behaves very differently as it approaches the speed of light. This paper explores the implications of modern physics to the operation and regulation of financial markets. Information cannot move faster than the speed of light. The geographic separation...

This paper provides evidence on the benefits of faster proprietary data feeds from stock exchanges over the regulated “public” consolidated data feeds. We measure and compare the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) prices in each data feed at the same data center. Price dislocations between...

We survey empirical studies on the development and effects of increased computerization across equity, foreign exchange, derivatives, and fixed-income markets. While the changes in the trading process due to computerization in less liquid markets such as the corporate bond market have been...

This paper studies whether high-frequency trading (HFT) increases the execution costs of institutional investors. We use technology upgrades that lower the latency of the London Stock Exchange to obtain variation in the level of HFT over time. Following upgrades, the level of HFT increases....