High-Frequency Trading. Do Machines Control Wall Street?

Description

Although it isn't a widely-acknowledged practice, many experts predict that high-frequency trading, invented by Wall Street firms at the turn of the 21st century, will lead to the next financial crisis. This program illustrates the basic principles of HFT, whereby a large number of computers are interconnected in order to purchase and sell thousands of market shares every microsecond, with no human control or regulation, for maximum profit. Viewers are taken inside a manic world dominated by machines - or, more precisely, by elaborate algorithms carefully developed by mathematicians. But how secure is this high-tech wonderland? The film also examines the possibility that software can break down and create what's known as a flash crash, an instantaneous market collapse. To borrow from another story of illusory genius - pay no attention to that machine behind the curtain! ?

Runtime

55 min

Series

Subjects

Genre

Date of Publication

[2013], c2012

Database

Films on Demand

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