Here's a snippet Strike, whose ranks include academics as well as former U.S. and Israeli military engineers, hoisted a 6-foot white dish on a tower rising 280 feet above the Nasdaq Stock Market's data center in Carteret, N.J., just outside New York City.
Through a series of microwave towers, the dish beams market data 734 miles to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's computer warehouse in Aurora, Ill., in 4.13 milliseconds, or about 95% of the theoretical speed of light, according to the company.
Fiber-optic cables, which are made up of long strands of glass, carry data at roughly 65% of light speed.
Still, some regulators worry whether Wall Street technology gives high-speed firms a leg up on less sophisticated investors who can't trade as quickly.
"I'm concerned that the advent of super-fast technology has made markets more of a playground for the wealthiest traders out there," said Bart Chilton, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Mary Jo White, chairwoman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has said the agency is studying high-frequency trading's effects on the market.
"We know there's an advantage of speed for high-frequency traders, but what is not well known … are the impacts of high-frequency" traders, White said at a financial industry conference in New York this month. "Are they helping? Are they harming? Are they doing both?"
