Germany to Tap Brakes On High-Speed Trading [View all]

[Roland99]

Source: Wall St. Journal

BERLIN—Germany is set to advance a bill Wednesday imposing a spate of new rules on high-frequency trading, escalating Europe's sweeping response to concerns that speedy traders have brought instability to the markets.

The measure seeks to require traders to register with Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, collect fees from those who use high-speed trading systems excessively, and force stock markets to install circuit breakers that can interrupt trading if a problem is detected.

...

These include the requirement for orders to rest on the exchange order book for a minimum of half a second—an eternity for firms accustomed to trading in millionths of a second—before they can be canceled or modified, and penalties for high cancellation rates.

On Aug. 1, France introduced a high-frequency trading tax as one of the three levies that comprise its financial-transaction-tax package.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444813104578018292059338944.html

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Good luck getting anything like that done here in the U.S.