The nanosecond era to dawn?

We used to measure trade execution times in seconds. Then milliseconds, then microseconds. Are we now on the verge of the nanosecond era? That's one billionth of a second, which is pretty fast!

Securities Industry News suggests that we're not quite there yet. But as the technology ramps up--collocation will be a big deal--we're certainly at a point where we can at least start talking about it. BATS Exchange said recently it had pushed its average latency--the time it takes for the exchange to acknowledge or fill an order--down to 250 microseconds. The NASDAQ cut the time it takes to executing an order down to an average of 210 microseconds. Other exchanges are lowering their times too.

At Correlix, which measures speeds for clients, the thinking is that times could soon dip below 100 microseconds, but that true nanosecond times in actual production are five years away. For now, it measures only in microseconds. But both it and Corvil are obviously thinking about the future. For what it's worth, Corvil's researchers say that information right now can travel 30 centimeters in a nanosecond. That's 11.8 inches.

For more:
- here's the Securities Industry News article

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Low latency exchange race is on
Latency data as a competitive advantage