Traders depend on continuous information commerce, not search, to act in split seconds
Evidence
In daily activities, this second type of commerce lays the groundwork for the first type. Traders in any time zone start their day by exchanging information with their colleagues in the previous time zone. They also keep some conversations open on screen throughout the day; here, intermittent with trading, they continually exchange information. A basic reason for this second type of commerce as an ongoing activity lies in that traders cannot, within the split seconds in which they make dealing decisions, search for the relevant information; they must have it “ready to hand.” To maintain a state of preinformation, traders continually engage in knowledge work, in addition to making economic transactions. The two areas into which traders’ work is divided correspond to two kinds of “commerce” (Zelizer 2000), in the following sense: while traders’ economic transactions involve them in the exchange of goods for money, traders’ knowledge work involves them in a reciprocal gift exchange (e.g., Bourdieu 1977; Hochschild 1989); traders continually offer information to others without requesting immediate payments. — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 130
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Granovetter embeddedness, Uzzi, and the relational-embeddedness literature on markets discussed just after; also to Zelizer’s relational work concept. — connects to: Daily mark-to-market accounting makes trader identity perpetually at risk — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 126; Trader identity depends on continuous connection to the market domain — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 71; Traders manipulate spreads, delays, and prices within a status-governed relational market. — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 117 (+2 more)
Related
- Traders manipulate spreads, delays, and prices within a status-governed relational market. (similarity 0.80)
- Traders disclose order flow through deals to read the market as it forms (similarity 0.78)
- Trader identity depends on continuous connection to the market domain (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Trader identity depends on continuous connection to the market domain
#corroborates(0.80) — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 71 - Ongoing markets sustain continual synchronous interaction unlike typical electronic groups
#corroborates(0.75) — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 142 - Traders manipulate spreads, delays, and prices within a status-governed relational market.
#expands(0.72) — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 117 - Trader sociality persists inside electronic markets and was ethnographically documented
#complicates(0.72)