Start up stock exchange pitches fairness to investors – Nathan Mayer Rothschild was a pioneer in high-frequency trading. Like the high-frequency traders of today, the powerful 18th century English banker used technology to make money on the stock exchanges.
According to legend, in 1815, Rothschild used carrier pigeons to learn the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo before anyone else. He used the news of Napoleon’s defeat to his advantage, buying up government bonds at the exchanges before any of his fellow bankers clued in. He made a fortune. “People will always look to have an edge,” acknowledges Jos Schmitt, president and CEO of Canada’s newest stock exchange, the Aequitas Neo Exchange in Toronto. “But in those days, everyone could do it. It was not too expensive to own a carrier pigeon.” Today, Schmitt sees a select few having that edge.
This elite group, he says, uses predatory high-frequency trading to gain an unfair advantage in the markets.
Joshua Errett – CBC News – April 06, 2015.
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