I'm testing out two brokers in comparing them in difference between delivering market quotes. I am SEEING a difference in speed, how much is the minimum difference in fractions of a second.... Maybe a physician can give me an answer...... Can the human brain see a difference of 0.1 second, 0.2 seconds,0.3 seconds....how much ......?
I'm not a medic, but I can tell you that the average human brain generally considers two different sounds to have started at the same time when their actual start times are less than 20 to 30 milliseconds apart.
Guys, The Lag in quote speed depends on the Throttling process that your firm uses when in calibrates your trading system. For instance the CBOT and Eurex send changes in Market prices for depth of market Once very second. The CME on the other hand sends close to 175 updates per second for the Minis. No trading system or processor can handle 175 updates per second over the web. Some Firms send out their updates at a rate of 1 update per second for all exchanges. This can obviously cause problems for a scalper who needs to have market quotes with the utmost of integrity. There is no feeling worse than going after a bid and it in not even close to the matching engine quote. This is question for you to ask your clearer and I would suspect that they will not be too anxious to answer, because most update at a rate of 1 or 2 per second. If a System updates at more than 1 update per second, it will only matter for Trading on the CME and Liffe. For the CBOT and Eurex, the field is fairly level! I have found that the optimal number of updates for us to broadcast is 4 to 8 updates per second. This does not use too much bandwidth or tax my clients workstation, but provides a good deal of integrity to the quotes. Local traders in a LAN setting get more lattitude because they are in a controlled environment and they are not limited to WAN bandwidth considerations. Lan updates are between 10 and 20 updates per second. I hope this helps out. Have a Great New Year!