Serious HFT moved to shortwave years ago. The chicago-NYC routes by microwave still exist, but are only for things that need higher data rates (as measured in kbps). It's hard to hide a giant log-periodic or yagi-uda antenna. The sites near Chicago that are aimed at London are well known to those in the industry.
On Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 10:53 AM Brett Frankenberger <rbf+na...@panix.com> wrote: > On Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 02:17:08PM -0300, Rubens Kuhl wrote: > > On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 5:05 PM Marshall Eubanks < > marshall.euba...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > > This was also pitched as one of the killer-apps for the SpaceX > > > Starlink satellite array, particularly for cross-Atlantic and > > > cross-Pacific trading. > > > > > > > > > > https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/marketintegrity/2019/06/25/fspacex-is-opening-up-the-next-frontier-for-hft/ > > > > > > "Several commentators quickly caught onto the fact that an extremely > > > expensive network whose main selling point is long-distance, > > > low-latency coverage has a unique chance to fund its growth by > > > addressing the needs of a wealthy market that has a high willingness > > > to pay — high-frequency traders." > > > > > > > > This is a nice plot for a movie, but not how HFT is really done. It's so > > much easier to colocate on the same datacenter of the exchange and run > > algorithms from there; while those algorithms need humans to guide their > > strategy, the human thought process takes a couple of seconds anyways. So > > the real HFTs keep using the defined strategy while the human controller > > doesn't tell it otherwise. > > For faster access to one exchange, yes, absolutely, colocate at the > exchange. But there's more then one exchange. > > As one example, many index futures trade in Chicago. The stocks that > make up those indices mostly trade in New York. There's money to be > made on the arbitrage, if your Chicago algorithms get faster > information from New York (and vice versa) than everyone else's > algorithms. > > More expensive but shorter fiber routes have been build between NYC and > Chicago for this reason, as have a microwave paths (to get > speed-of-light in air rather than in glass). There's competition to > have the microwave towers as close as possible to the data centers, > because the last mile is fiber so the longer your last mile, the less > valuable your network. > > > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-08/the-gazillion-dollar-standoff-over-two-high-frequency-trading-towers > > -- Brett >
