More Than A Third Of Exchange Orders Last Less Than Half A Second

About a third of orders sent to equities exchanges in the U.S. last for less than half a second, Securities and Exchange Commission head Mary Jo White said in a speech yesterday. Stock exchange trades “Trading today is high-tech, high-speed, and widely dispersed among many different trading venues,” said White. “The extremely short-term strategies of high-frequency trading firms represent more than half of all trading volume.” White said that in light of multiple technical snafus in the last year, most notably the NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ)’s temporary shut down on August 22, the SEC would focus on operational integrity…