The Situation Room

Operations never cease and thanks to technology, speed is increasing along with the length of the trading day.

In an effort to kill latency, Barclays Capital has co-located its clients' servers to be closer to the exchanges. In this industry, every millisecond counts.

Speaking of time, consider this: If the London Stock Exchange were purchased by an exchange in the US, its trading day could grow to 13 hours.

Time is definitely of the essence on the buy side. Waters sat down with a head trader at Pimco, who says that technology means he is in contact with the business around the clock—from the moment he wakes up at 4 a.m. until he goes to sleep at 9 p.m.

The industry is facing other challenges, too. This month's cover story delves into the mess that is credit derivatives processing. Not only were large amounts of trades languishing, federal regulators had to step in and urge the banks to get their houses in order. So far, the results have been impressive. Why hasn't the Fed stuck its nose into the STP debate?

Also in this issue, we examine the cross-border implications of MiFID and take a stroll through Jersey City, NJ, where one generation ago, the thought of trading away from Wall Street was unimaginable. Now it is not only possible; it's pragmatic in an age of threats like terrorism and bird flu.

If disaster strikes, operations will take on new meaning.