I feel like it's also got to be super stressful
Imagine getting a call you system is down and is costing them millions per hour
Imagine getting a call you system is down and is costing them millions per hour
This is how, say, a modern x-ray machine prevents itself from failing in a way that radiation gets stuck on.
One funny bit about the development process was that initially I was going to be nice and implement every layer as its own stand-alone bit of software communicating via a defined set of primitives with the layers above and below. But that was slow as molasses so in the end all of that elegance got discarded for an absolutely unholy sandwich that did all of the layers in a single chunk of code. But with the experience from the 'slow' version that was actually doable, I would have never been able to write that as the first implementation. Classic illustration of 'first make it work, then make it fast'.
Or do you mean dark pools/private exchanges that may run 24x7?
This has still to exist for real. Every couple of years there is a resurgence of "we should have 24/7 equity markets", followed by milestone announcements of Nasdaq.
The reality is more... nuanced.
First, there has to be a wide enough window for corporate actions and news dissemination to happen. Not only is that a regulatory requirement, but anyway no sane investor would like to trade in such a window even if possible.
Second, there are already early sessions, pre opening sessions, and late sessions on most American markets. The liquidity there is almost inexistant, so I wouldn't say there is a huge demand for extended trading hours by non-retail participants.
And last, half the liquidity of US markets is not on lit books, and half the remaining lit liquidity is close to the auction. I don't think it would even be a net profit for lit exchanges to extend their hours in these conditions. As for dark pool, I think only 2 or 3 of the smaller ones are 24/7, like the one from IB.
> if you're not trading outside of US Equity hours you're leaving significant money on the table
HFTs need a lot of liquidity and tight spreads, that's pretty much only doable at scale in the US and Japan. Europe and EM are either not liquid enough, or only really able to sustain low capital ad-hoc strategies.
Imagine a single person making a single mistake causing a building to collapse? Or a nuclear plant to meltdown.