Michael Lewis

Very fast computerized trading in the stock market.

To get an advantage.

To get an advantage, right.

So the stock exchanges in this country, there are 13 public stock exchanges, sell the right

to advance information to high-frequency traders.

And they do this by selling them the right to locate their computers, the high-frequency trading computers, right next to the stock exchange computers.

So that... So it's a question of milliseconds.

Yes.

I mean, the difference between the information that a high-frequency trader sees and what most investors see is a couple of milliseconds, yes.

That's enough for a computer.

It's a computer.

So a couple of milliseconds is a lot of time for a computer.

So there's enough time for the computer to react to what you do.

In many ways, yes.

That's exactly right.

And they're trading as if they know the prices before you do.

So if you come in to buy, they may know that...

they can buy it cheaper because the price has moved, but you don't know that, so they buy it cheaper and they sell it to you.

So yes, it's totally unnecessary Wall Street intermediation.

Sort of like sitting, standing, putting themselves in the middle of the market where they're not needed.