That 20 minute delay.

Temporal correlation between Apple and market siblings.
(black bars show synchronization)

That little issue of the 20 minute delay in stock prices is a very interesting one.

I am interested in time, maps and relationships. My computer clocks are synchronized with network clocks that use atomic standards to keep accurate time.

The markets slid yesterday. I checked them first thing today to see how they would respond at opening. I was surprised to find that market reports that I thought were real time are not.

finance.google.com offers an interactive market graph.
As of 9:21 Eastern time, no data.

scottrade.com offers market data to subscribers, which I am,
As of 9:25, no data.

excite.com offers a thumbnail survey that claims a delay,
As of 9:30 Eastern time, no data. Curious.

Is there a twilight between market change, and the rest of the world finding out about it?

Does this delay provide an advantage to the real time trader?

The image above is from an exhaustive numerical analysis to determine the connectivity of various stocks.

Electronic signals travel at nearly the speed of light.

An electronic signal, as a stock price, can circle the earth 7500 times each second.

A fast video gamer can react in less than a tenth of a second.

A computer can react in about a microsecond.

I would wager, that until that 20 minute delay is removed, some people with access to real-time signals and computers will continue to profit exorbitantly off the losses of others.

In trading terms, a half hour is an eternity. It is the chasm between rich and poor, just and unjust, leading and following.

Apple vs. AMD tracking over a year.