Algorithmic Trading

Is trading where orders to buy or sell financial instruments is made by software applications, without human interaction, where the buy/sell decision is driven by pre-programmed rules, which might determine factors such as timing, price, quantity, etc. As such, transactions can be executed very rapidly. Many different forms of algorithmic trading exist, for different purposes. Most are latency sensitive, and some - such as high frequency trading - are dependent on very low and consistent latency.