Do speed bumps curb low-latency trading? Evidence from a laboratory market
Trading and Market Microstructure
2019-10-09 v1 General Finance
Abstract
Exchanges implement intentional trade delays to limit the harmful impact of low-latency trading. Do such "speed bumps" curb investment in fast trading technology? Data is scarce since trading technologies are proprietary. We build an experimental trading platform where participants face speed bumps and can invest in fast trading technology. We find that asymmetric speed bumps, on average, reduce investment in speed by only 20%. Increasing the magnitude of the speed bump by one standard deviation further reduces low-latency investment by 8.33%. Finally, introducing a symmetric speed bump leads to the same investment level as no speed bump at all.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1910.03068,
title = {Do speed bumps curb low-latency trading? Evidence from a laboratory market},
author = {Mariana Khapko and Marius Zoican},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.03068},
year = {2019}
}