Trading Hours

[Saint!]

Would enforced trading hours be a positive thing for Bitcoin?

Although it would place quite tight controls on the markets but with so much market manipulation going on during low periods would it be better to shut off the market during those times. ie weekends, after hours trading.

Obviously this would probably require a central trading platform to make this decision which we don't really have, unless it was something that all major exchanges signed up to.

[edd]

Traders live in all parts of the world. Why would you want to prohibit someone from trading during the hours when they're most active simply because others aren't?

[Saint!]

Obviously there would still be exchanges and local bitcoins hubs that you could trade at.

But taking MtGox as an example you can clearly that manipulators take advantage of the "out of hours" low trading volumes to cause massive swings in market value.

Where as if the trading was kept to certain hours when the majority of the market was awake and watching the market it would lessen the affect that the manipulators could have on the price.
Which would go a long was to providing a stable bitcoin market, rather than one that goes bananas every weekend.

Obviously the manipulation of the market is still speculation but the timings of the suspected manipulation do suggest as much.


Edit: Just putting this forward, I must admit I'm not a trading guru or anything. Just seems to make sense that closing the market during these slow trading hours would protect it somewhat.

[BitSmile]

Shutting down exchanges during certain periods is, in my opinion, greater manipulation than slow period sell-offs/buys.

I don't get all this concern over "manipulators". If it is that obvious then bet against them and they will lose money...

+1

[byronbb]

Shutting down exchanges during certain periods is, in my opinion, greater manipulation than slow period sell-offs/buys.

I don't get all this concern over "manipulators". If it is that obvious then bet against them and they will lose money...

Humans are conditioned to think there is a greater force pulling at the wires making everything happen. "God" is the original manipulator.

[Peter Lambert]

Obviously there would still be exchanges and local bitcoins hubs that you could trade at.

But taking MtGox as an example you can clearly that manipulators take advantage of the "out of hours" low trading volumes to cause massive swings in market value.

Where as if the trading was kept to certain hours when the majority of the market was awake and watching the market it would lessen the affect that the manipulators could have on the price.
Which would go a long was to providing a stable bitcoin market, rather than one that goes bananas every weekend.

Obviously the manipulation of the market is still speculation but the timings of the suspected manipulation do suggest as much.


Edit: Just putting this forward, I must admit I'm not a trading guru or anything. Just seems to make sense that closing the market during these slow trading hours would protect it somewhat.

If this is so obvious, then people would put fiat into the exchange during business hours and then wait until after hours to place their bids, thus counteracting any new coins being placed onto the exchange during off-business hours.

Anyway, who would do this "enforcing" you speak of? Nobody has that kind of power over the exchanges.

[torba]

Either exchanges would enforce this (expect some exchanges to offer 24/7 as a feature) or bitcoin software would have to enforce this, in that case have fun making transactions after the curfew.

[tiberiandusk]

I don't get all this concern over "manipulators". If it is that obvious then bet against them and they will lose money...

Noobs on the left. Vets on the right.

[jeannie]

Forex is nearly 24/7 except for Sunday, I think it is best to open 24/7 as it helps those who want to buy or sell to get out/in of the market anytime.   It gives more security to Bitcoin if investors know that they can buy or sell any time of the day , any day.

[Gabi]

enforced

Lol

[calian]

You can literally determine when someone has lost money by the type of threads they start. The 24x7 market action of BTC is one of the things I really love about it (and no I'm not a day trader). It feels so much less artificial than the Wall Street version: "It's 4:00 pm on Friday. Let's close up the exchange for 65 hours and go down to the yacht club."

[freedomno1]

NO I love full exchanges
Timed exchanges would just promote OTC trading After hours Trading and trading between big investors outside of market hours

[Frozenlock]

It feels so much less artificial than the Wall Street version: "It's 4:00 pm on Friday. Let's close up the exchange for 65 hours and go down to the yacht club."

This.

The world doesn't stop because some people take some days off.

[notme]

NO I love full exchanges
Timed exchanges would just promote OTC trading After hours Trading and trading between big investors outside of market hours

Exactly.  Just as many big stock moves come when retail traders are out of the market, trying to close exchanges when you can't stop OTC trading will only give manipulators another tool.

[torba]

I think we should all point and laugh at the floor traders while they "get some sleep after a tough day" while we rise off into the sunset on server racks.

[notme]

I think we should all point and laugh at the floor traders while they "get some sleep after a tough day" while we rise off into the sunset on server racks.

Floor traders don't exist anymore.  They have been replaced by scripts.

[freedomno1]

I think we should all point and laugh at the floor traders while they "get some sleep after a tough day" while we rise off into the sunset on server racks.

Floor traders don't exist anymore.  They have been replaced by scripts.

That's very very true damn algorithms and noise

[notme]

I think we should all point and laugh at the floor traders while they "get some sleep after a tough day" while we rise off into the sunset on server racks.

Floor traders don't exist anymore.  They have been replaced by scripts.

That's very very true damn algorithms and noise

Market making is a waste of human resources.  It is a very well defined process that is easily automated.

That said, I'm not okay with programs that are allowed to front run trades by being given access to orders before they are eligible to be executed.

[freedomno1]

I think we should all point and laugh at the floor traders while they "get some sleep after a tough day" while we rise off into the sunset on server racks.

Floor traders don't exist anymore.  They have been replaced by scripts.

That's very very true damn algorithms and noise

Market making is a waste of human resources.  It is a very well defined process that is easily automated.

That said, I'm not okay with programs that are allowed to front run trades by being given access to orders before they are eligible to be executed.

I'm not really happy with algorithmic trading and it's ability to manipulate limit orders by selling just enough to eat a persons order then pump the price down again
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~mkearns/papers/vwap.pdf
Papers kind of long but is pretty much the explanation

That said the problems of getting priority in trading by thousands of a second over other's is also an issue and issuing shares and cancelling orders in the same timeframe is another problem

[notme]

I think we should all point and laugh at the floor traders while they "get some sleep after a tough day" while we rise off into the sunset on server racks.

Floor traders don't exist anymore.  They have been replaced by scripts.

That's very very true damn algorithms and noise

Market making is a waste of human resources.  It is a very well defined process that is easily automated.

That said, I'm not okay with programs that are allowed to front run trades by being given access to orders before they are eligible to be executed.

I'm not really happy with algorithmic trading and it's ability to manipulate limit orders by selling just enough to eat a persons order then pump the price down again
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~mkearns/papers/vwap.pdf
Papers kind of long but is pretty much the explanation

That is exactly the problem I mentioned.  They have an advantaged view of the retail orders and are able to place orders to be executed before the retail trades execute.

That said the problems of getting priority in trading by thousands of a second over other's is also an issue and issuing shares and cancelling orders in the same timeframe is another problem

This gets at the other main problem: it is illegal for a human to place an order without intending to let if fill.  Algorithms are permitted to do this due to a bug in the way the law was written.

In general, I don't see a problem with allowing companies to rent out rack space in the exchange's datacenter.  This is no different from a trade paying a fee to participate.  It is the ability to front run retail orders and the ability to stack the order book (and remove the orders quick enough if retail orders come in that will mess up their manipulation) that are the problems.