By SubTel Forum
“A couple of milliseconds can roll out to a $20-million difference in [a trader’s] account at the end of the month,†says Nigel Bayliff, the CEO of Huawei Marine Networks, in a recent Popsci article.
Traders used to all buy and sell stocks in the same crowded room. Everyone received information at the same time, and the first guy to shout or signal got the sale. Today, using algorithms that exploit slightly different prices changing at slightly different speeds, and computers connected to exclusive fiber-optic lines that can buy and sell stocks within fractions of a second, high-frequency traders are able to buy low and sell slightly higher in virtually the same instant.
Companies like Bayliff’s are looking for ways to shave time, and the easiest method is to build a more direct route. Huawei is working with another company, Hibernia Atlantic, to lay the first transatlantic fiber-optic submarine cable in a decade, a $400-million-plus project that will save traders five milliseconds.
