Program trading

Program trading is a type of trading in securities, usually consisting of baskets of fifteen stocks or more that are executed by a computer program simultaneously based on predetermined conditions. Program trading is often used by hedge funds and other institutional investors pursuing index arbitrage or other arbitrage strategies. There are essentially two reasons to use program trading, either because of the desire to trade many stocks simultaneously (for example, when a mutual fund receives an influx of money it will use that money to increase its holdings in the multiple stocks which the fund is based on), or alternatively to arbitrage temporary price discrepancies between related financial instruments, such as between an index and its constituent parts. According to the New York Stock Exchange, in 2006 program trading accounts for about 30% and as high as 46.4% of the trading volume on that exchange every day. Barrons breaks down its weekly figures for program trading between index arbitrage and other types of program trading. As of July 2012, program trading made up about 25% of the volume on the NYSE; index arbitrage made up less than 1%. Several factors help to explain the explosion in program trading. Technological advances spawned the growth of electronic communication networks. These electronic exchanges, like Instinet and Archipelago Exchange, allow thousands of buy and sell orders to be matched very rapidly, without human intervention. In addition, the proliferation of hedge funds with all their sophisticated trading strategies have helped drive program-trading volume. As technology advanced and access to electronic exchanges became easier and faster, program trading developed into the much broader algorithmic trading and high-frequency trading strategies employed by the investment banks and hedge funds. Program Trading is a strategy normally used by large institutional traders. Barrons shows a detailed breakdown of the NYSE-published program trading figures each week, giving the figures for the largest program trading firms (such as investment banks).

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Program trading

Dark pool

In finance, a dark pool (also black pool) is a private forum (alternative trading system or ATS) for trading securities, derivatives, and other financial instruments. Liquidity on these markets is called dark pool liquidity. The bulk of dark pool trades represent large trades by financial institutions that are offered away from public exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, so that such trades remain confidential and outside the purview of the general investing public.

High-frequency trading

High-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic trading in finance characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools. While there is no single definition of HFT, among its key attributes are highly sophisticated algorithms, co-location, and very short-term investment horizons in trading securities. HFT uses proprietary trading strategies carried out by computers to move in and out of positions in seconds or fractions of a second.

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