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Comment by batmansmom1 | Hacker News Reader

Time box for trades is a very interesting idea that I've never heard of before. Would probably equalize the playing field by a lot, reducing the advantage firms have simply by being close to the market. Have there been serious discussions about this in the past? I wonder what the downsides would be, besides that it would hurt the bottom line of market makers

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No matter what time box you choose, someone is not going to be able to react to information for longer than the time box. It introduces complexity for dubious benefit, IMHO.

And yes, this has been talked about endlessly. Heck, some people have proposed even further restrictions; for example, in practice, the first and last hours that the exchange are open tend to have the highest volume, so why not only keep the exchange open for those two hours?

> No matter what time box you choose, someone is not going to be able to react to information for longer than the time box. It introduces complexity for dubious benefit, IMHO.

If releases like this were scheduled for 30 seconds into a 5 minute box, basically any trader that cares would be able to react inside the box. We could say 99.9% for the sake of argument.

I can't exactly state whether it's a good idea overall, but the idea that it might not catch literally everyone doesn't really matter. It's an extreme example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, when it comes to this single aspect.

I personally tend to believe that the more complexity you introduce into systems like this, the more unintended consequences and more opportunities for shenanigans arise. I don’t think that five minute boxes moves the needle on societal good via the exchange. I am also not an expert.

Is a system where you only process orders every X minutes actually more complex? The current system is _full_ of stupid shenanigans specifically due to a lack of a timebox.

A computer can process your release in 4 minutes. However if your release is complex at all a human would not be able to figure it out.

A computer can process it in 4 seconds, but badly. Given 4 minutes I think a human with reasonable tools could do as good of a job as a computer.

That depends on what the information his, and the add on side effects. Some things are subtle and take a while for a human to figure out.

> Time box for trades is a very interesting idea

It's how the market opens every morning and closes every afternoon [1]. There is still an advantage to low latency--the closer your get your order to the submission deadline, the more information you can incorporate into it.

[1] https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/nyse/markets/nyse/NYSE_Openi...

Warren Buffet has stated the markets should be open only one day per year before. I can't find his exact words though.

It would equalize the field. However it also means unexpected expenses cannot be handled. Furnace breaks, even though you have plenty of $$$ in stocks you are unable to get it fixed. (I know a retired person who was forced to buy a new car with cash because the bank didn't accept their > $million in investments as proof they could pay for a small loan)

I believe you're slightly mis-remembering; the quote that I'm aware of is "Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years."

It's a statement about strategy, not about suggesting regulation.

He has said that type of thing a lot more often. I seem to recall the suggestion the market shutdown except for once a year as well. As I recall he admitted that it wasn't workable.

Or maybe I remember wrong.

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