High-Speed Trading No Longer Hurtling Forward

The hottest new thing on Wall Street is cooling down.

High-frequency trading firms — the lightning-quick, computerized companies that have risen in the last decade to dominate the nation’s stock market — are now struggling to hold onto their gains.

While no official data is kept on employment at the high-speed firms, interviews with more than a dozen industry participants suggest that firms large and small have been cutting staff, and in some cases have shut down. The firms also are accounting for a declining percentage of a shrinking pool of stock trading, from 61 percent three years ago to 51 percent now, according to the Tabb Group, a data firm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/business/with-profits-dropping-high-speed-trading-cools-down.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all