(b) Whether the delay was 0 or 100 seconds, the computer consuming the feed will always be faster than a human.
(c) The details of the study are murky and unknown. In particular, the data collection aspect is suspect given it sounds like the researchers received third party data not directly collected by themselves. How were the timestamps handled? Were various caching issues properly accounted for? (The SEC website is served up via Akamai, for example).
Anyway, it's great a populist topic these days. Evil HFT always beating you to the punch, etc. But in reality, it doesn't matter because they are always faster than you. I suggest you read this post by well known finance/trading blogger Kid Dynamite: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/someone-will-always-have-the-da...
Yeah, I'm not sure why it should be assumed the web works the same as a dedicated feed. If I refresh a webpage that has "realtime" market data, I still had to wait for HTTP(S), the web server, network latency, my web browser, etc. to render the number. If I had a dedicated line and realtime API I would undoubtedly get the number relatively faster than anyone getting it from scraping a web page.
If you know that someone else has an edge, you can plan for it and you know how much risk you're taking on. The stock market is heavily regulated to reduce risk in trading. The scandal isn't necessarily that some people get the info early (although that plays better in the news), but that it's a secret.
Uhm, it's not a secret at all. It's called the SEC Edgar Public Dissemination Service. It's right there on their website with instructions on how to subscribe along with specifications and contact information. There is no conspiracy here.
If it were known, it wouldn't be news that two independent studies discovered it.
Edit: the second link says "Being forwarded all public filings acquired and accepted by EDGAR at the same time as filings are sent to the SEC from EDGAR". It does not say "several seconds early."
If you worked trading earnings it would not be news to you. Computers are also polling other places (like company websites) to see if the content is just hidden but still available or gets accidentally posted early.
(a) The SEC feed can be subscribed to by anyone.
(b) Whether the delay was 0 or 100 seconds, the computer consuming the feed will always be faster than a human.
(c) The details of the study are murky and unknown. In particular, the data collection aspect is suspect given it sounds like the researchers received third party data not directly collected by themselves. How were the timestamps handled? Were various caching issues properly accounted for? (The SEC website is served up via Akamai, for example).
Anyway, it's great a populist topic these days. Evil HFT always beating you to the punch, etc. But in reality, it doesn't matter because they are always faster than you. I suggest you read this post by well known finance/trading blogger Kid Dynamite: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/someone-will-always-have-the-da...