Technology And The Stock Market Essay -- essays research papers

The purpose of this research paper is to prove that technology has been good for the stock market. Thanks to technology, there are now more traders than ever because of the ease of trading online with firms such as Auditrade and Ameritrade. There are also more stocks that are doing well because they are in the technology field. The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ have both benefitted from the recent technological movement.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The NYSE says they â€Å"are dedicated to maintaining the most efficient and technologically advanced marketplace in the world.† The key to that leadership has been the state-of-the-art technology and systems development. Technology serves to support and enhance the human judgement at point-of-sale.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  NASDAQ, the world’s first fully electronic stock market, started trading on February 8th, 1971. Today, it is the fastest growing stock market in the United States. It alo ranks second among the world’s securities in terms of dollar value. By constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of investors and public companies, NASDAQ has achieved more than almost any other market, in a shorter period of time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Technology has also helped investors buy stocks in other markets. Markets used to open at standard local times. This would cause an American trader to sleep through the majority of a Japanese trading day. With more online and afterhours trading, investors have more access to markets so that American traders can still trade Japanese stocks. This is also helped by an expansion of most market times. Afterhours trading is available from most online trading firms.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For investing specialists, technology provides operational capability for handling more stocks and greatly increased volumes of trading. Specialists can follow additional sources of market information, and multiple trading and post-trade functions, all on â€Å"one screen† at work or at home. They are also given interfaces to â€Å"upstairs† risk-management systems. They also have flexiblity to rearrange their physical workspaces, terminals and functional activities.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Floor brokers are helped with supports for an industry-wide effort to compare buy/sell contracts for accuracy shortly after the trade. They are also given flexibility in establishing w... ...e Hand-Held is a mobile, hand-held device that enables brokers to recieve orders, disseminate reports, and send market â€Å"looks† in both data and image format, from anywhere on the trading floor.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Intermarket Trading System is a display that was installed in 1978 linking all major U.S. exchanges. ITS allows NYSE and NASDAQ specialists and brokers to compare the price of a security traded on multiple exchanges in order to get the best price for the investor.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  These are the machines that have helped greatly increase the buying and selling of stocks over the past few years. There are great advantages to trading today over the situation that past traders had. The biggest beneficiaries of this new technology are investors themselves. They have all day to trade instead of trading only during market hours, they have more stocks to choose from, and the markets are very high so people are making a lot of money. In conclusion, I have discovered that the research I have done on this project has revealed what I originally thought to be true. That is that the stock market has greatly benefitted from the recent advances in technologies.