2026 State of Trading Infrastructure
How Structural Shifts Are Redefining Market Data and Trading Infrastructure at Quantitative Firms
Extended trading hours, compounding market structure changes, and increasingly bursty market data are expanding both the scope and the stress profile of modern trading environments. This report, based on a survey and interviews with senior leaders at 61 global trading firms, highlights where infrastructure is straining, why opportunities are being missed during volatility, and what firms are prioritizing to preserve performance as volumes and variability rise.
What You’ll Learn
- How liquidity and price formation are spreading beyond the traditional U.S. trading day, and what that changes for market data operations
- Why quote churn and message rates are rising as market structure evolves (compounding effects over time, not one single event)
- Why variability and spikes are now as important as average volume growth for capacity planning
- How cross-asset strategies, including crypto, add 24/7 operating expectations and new volatility profiles
- What firms report about maintaining competitive latency under load, and where market data processing breaks first
Key Findings From Quantitative Trading Firms
Infrastructure stress is showing up first in market data. Nearly three-quarters of respondents reported some level of disruption during high volatility—ranging from latency spikes to dropped data and outages.
Peak load is becoming the constraint. Short, sharp bursts tied to volatility and automation are forcing firms to plan for extremes without overbuilding.
Competitive latency is harder to preserve as complexity rises. Firms care less about “absolute fastest” and more about holding their relative latency position, especially during volatility.
Who is this Report For
Built for leaders responsible for performance and reliability in electronic trading:
- Heads of Trading & Quant
- Market Data & Platform Engineering
- Front-office Technology, Infrastructure, and Operations
- COOs/CFOs evaluating scale, risk, and cost of change
Methodology
This report analyzes survey and interview insights from senior executives at 61 firms trading globally, spanning proprietary trading firms, hedge funds/asset managers, and bank trading/execution desks.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is trading infrastructure?
Trading infrastructure is the technology stack that ingests market data, processes signals, manages risk, routes orders, and executes across venues while maintaining performance, resilience, and operational control.
Why are market data volumes rising?
Growth is being driven by expanding market scope (more venues, automation, and more granular price formation) plus compounding market structure updates that increase quote churn and processing complexity over time.
Why are data spikes such a problem?
Volatility-driven bursts can exceed typical averages by multiples, stressing feed handling, normalization, distribution, and downstream strategy/execution systems.
Why does latency matter during volatility?
Many firms focus on preserving relative latency under load; brief degradation can translate into missed opportunities and competitive disadvantage.
