The number of high-frequency trading firms continues to grow, but the volume of shares traded by the important group is waning.
That's the conclusion of a group of exchange executives who derive at least half of their volume from high-frequency trading shops.
"I'm signing account documents at a record pace," Paul Adcock, an NYSE Euronext executive vice president who heads operations at NYSE Arca, told attendees at a recent industry conference. "But those types of accounts struggle when the VIX is where it is."
"High-frequency trading is not going to go away anytime soon," Brian Hyndman, a Nasdaq OMX senior vice president responsible for transaction services, said at the same conference. "But it is no longer in the growth stage. We are probably mid-field." About 55 percent of Nasdaq's volume comes from high-frequency trading firms, Hyndman said, with the amount dependent on the level of the VIX.