High-frequency trading

In high-frequency trading the design is driven by a latency budget rather than by architectural preference. The time from an inbound packet to an outbound order is set as a target up front; any layer that does not fit the budget is either simplified or moved off the hot path.

Scope

• Market data processed with minimal copying and evaluated in a single pass
• Decision and order generation kept on an isolated, allocation-free hot path
• Pre-trade risk controls designed to fit inside the budget
• End-to-end latency measurement and distribution monitoring
• Persistence, logging and reporting moved off the hot path

How we work

We measure first. No optimisation begins before the latency distribution of the current flow is established; without visibility into where time is spent, tuning is guesswork. Once measurement is in place the budget is allocated layer by layer, and every change is verified against that same measurement.

Boundaries

Latency only means something together with the institution's network topology, exchange connectivity and hardware placement. We do not quote a number before those three are on the table, and whatever we measure is delivered so that it can be re-measured in the institution's own environment.