High Frequency Trading

Assignment this week explores growing anxieties over the behaviour of some banks and the super-fast, computerised share-dealing systems that enable them to process up to 400,000 share deals every second. This so-called "High Frequency Trading" earned banks an estimated 21 billion dollars last year. But critics say they are using this new technology, alongside their unrivalled access to market information, to gain an unfair advantage in the market-place - with pensions funds and ordinary investors losing out.