But Mr. Nagy said that the size of the consolidated company would change several aspects of the stock markets, from the fees exchanges charge brokers to the degree of competition among high speed firms.
HIGH-SPEED FIRM SHUTTERS | Computerized traders are beginning to look less mighty.
On these time scales, that is an eternity," said David Lauer, a trader at a high-speed firm until a year ago.
Doug Cifu, the president of another high-speed firm, Virtu Financial, said Tuesday that "Eladian's failure demonstrates how difficult it is for market-making firms to prosper in current market conditions".
"If [traders] were using some special information that only they had access to — yeah, that would be a problem," said Manoj Narang, chief executive of Tradeworx Inc., a high-speed firm in Red Bank, N.J. "But nothing like that is going on".
Share prices were plummeting, and the volatile conditions were ideal for high-speed firms.
About a quarter of all stock trading in Canada is done by high-speed firms.
When those groups pull back, the high-speed firms have little choice but to scale back as well.
All high-speed firms together are estimated to account for more than half of all trading in American stocks.
High-speed firms accounted for about 12 percent of all currency trading in 2010 this yearr, it is set to be up to 28 percent, according to the consulting firm Celent.
High-speed firms tend to mimic one another's trading strategies, and in times of crisis this can amplify price swings.
