I have a hard time thinking it may not be legal? As regards some not being able to act as fast as others, that has always been the case. This just took it up a notch. Historically, a Trader was never more than 3 feet from a phone was an old statement. They had phone in the Room, in the Bedroom, in the car and were awake when the Tokyo, London and New York markets were open. By the age of 35 most were burned out. The purpose of keeping the phones near was in the end to "beat the other guy" (e.g. speed). The Trader's (95%) used a software system marketed by the Rich Corp. This provided them with a pipeline
of input which they used as knowledge for buy/sell. One of the most private rooms on Wall Street was the Trader Room. It was hard to get in and watch the Traders at work. This is one of the most competitive business's in the world and the one who has the fastest system, (including business assumptions, et al) will have the edge on buy/sell. One last point..The target for a good Trader is to be able to trade $100M in stock without effecting the price. There are many tricks to do this and too long to go into detail.
