welcome to power lunch. at the nyse stocks are sitting at record highs but as we saw, it was quite a battle 24 hours ago right here at the nyse. it most certainly was. we push ahead today on this big debate on high frequency trading on power lunch. where are the regulators? we talk to lawmakers who come at the issue from different points of view. we also have specialists to tell us what high speed traders look for. first, how does high speed trading fit into the overall market? who better than bob pisani to explain all of that. i bet you can say that. algorithm. i can spell it, too. the important point is a lot of people wonder when you go to your broker and actually push a button. let me walk you through a typical trade. critics of high frequency trading say these traders are scalping pennies from investors but the truth s a little more complicated than that. let s use an example. through your broker, you send an order to buy 100 shares of ibm. that order is like
package rounding up spending. it helps the country s railway stocks steam ahead. imf christine legarde urging policy easing. and stronger data helps appreciating stocks to the longest rally in three months. the dow flirting with a new high. announcer: you re watching worldwide exchange, bringing you business news from around the globe. and welcome to today s program. we are just over an hour into trading during the european session at the moment. you can see on the stoxx europe 600 currently, advancers being outpaced by decliners by around about 5/4 at the moment. let s show you where we stand. we hit the session lows just a short while ago. yesterday, the ftse 100 was up just six points. right now, it s fairley flat. we have services data coming out of the uk. we had the latest composite services pmi ticked down 53. the flash is 54. that drives the composite on the dow 54.3. we get the collective eurozone number in just a few minutes. head of the ecb meeting later
we start giving that back a little bit. we did see some big gains across the board. if you check out currencies, you ll see right now that the dollar is higher against the euro and the yen. euro is trading at 11.3764 and the yen is at 103.94. and the ten-year note spoke of 2.8% on wednesday. that s the highest level it s seen in just about two months. you can take a look and see it s just below that at 2.79%. andrew has some of today s top corporate stories. news this morning, joe referenced it earlier, citigroup federal is under investigation in a criminal probe under their mexican unit banamex. the question for citigroup is whether investors ignored signs of money laundering. they re facing a civil investigation in the securities and exchange enforcement unit. citi released earlier bamamex uncovered apparent fraud. so just when you thought is citigroup was out from under it, it has further reserve about its capital. also now taking on tesla securities, a notice it intends
ecb holds rates steady saying the risk of deflation have not decreased. the markets set to edge lower after a jump in claims. plus, more trouble for citigroup as u.s. authorities open a criminal inquiry into the bank s mexican unit, so should you be worried about the company s stock price? a long legal battle starting up between tesla and the state of new jersey, well tell you how the hek carmaker is fighting back against the garden state. a lot for the markets to digest ahead of the jobs friday after the s&p closes for a record high for a second consecutive session. the jobless claims are up to 326,000 and as we said the ecb does keep its key interest rate unchanged at a quarter percent despite all the concerns about deflation rinks. in a news conference mario draghi said the drcentral bank will use all methods needed. they say if a 0.5 cpi doesn t get your attention, what does? this guy is really on a mission to get that economy restarted. i think he s managed to be
individual investors, because i think they re opportunities. we ve heard a lot lately about the tax on the high-frequence traders place on the market, with the run-ahead tactics, taking your stock, marking it up, and selling it back to you. i ve compared these parasites to mosquitos, which i thought was toxic enough. thank heavens someone from the brokage industry has final taken up the torch, none other than charles schwab, who seized my mosquito insinuation and raises it, by calling high-frequency trading a cancer on the system, that s abedded by hungry and greedy stock exchanges. i applaud his interest in the debate and hope others follow. i certainly don t mean to diminish the arguments against the pickpockets, which is what schwab calls them, but i want to talk about making some dollars now, not losing fractions of pennies to manipulation. i want to talk about opportunities that develop when a vacuum of buy owners occurs, not just the ephemeral orders of high-frequence t