this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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Asklemmy
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I guarantee algorithmic traders don't make that much, relative to the amount they start with. If you want to code your own and find out, there's probably someone with an easy-to-sign-up-for API.
Sure, it's probably only worth it for huge banks that hook almost directly into transcontinental internet cables (to which my anti capitalist ass would say, that's probably why it's legal), but to me, that still basically generating some profits by exploiting a "glitch" in the implementation of stock trades while bringing absolutely no real value to the system.
So does that mean you think human-speed trades are different? Usually people that lead with anti-capitalist think it's all witchcraft.
Yes, stocks were made to finance human businesses and be traded between humans to exchange "parts" of a company easily. I'm not fond of capitalism but I can't deny that the stock market provides value under this system. But I don't see where high frequency trading actually brings any of the value it "generates" into this.
My main issues with our current brand of capitalism is that money can be very far removed from reality, with things like greenhouse gasses emissions being effectively "free" even though they affect everyone on the planet, including our economic systems. So, the way I see it, it heavily incentivizes short term profits at the cost of basically everything else. Unless we regulate the hell out of it I guess, but apparently that is a sin against the free market
Interesting. Good on you for actually looking in to how economics is supposed to work. Maybe you'd be interested in this, if you haven't heard about it already?
On climate change, in Canada, we have a carbon tax, but it's still lower than the actual social price of emissions. And the current frontrunner for next election has made scrapping it his whole platform, sadly. I don't know much about high-frequency trading, but I've kind of just assumed it's the same but faster. There are startups, I know that, so it's not a total monopoly. There was one that was using shortwave to pass along information with tiny latency.