Obsession with short term getting out of hand

IT MUST undoubtedly be frustrating to adherents of the "buy and hold" school of investing to observe that, as markets evolve, the end product is a progressive shortening of investment horizons.

Stock prices, for instance, react almost daily to the innumerable economic and earnings announcements out of China and the US, while Wall Street gyrates every six weeks to the pronouncements of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

Exchanges, in the meantime, having supposedly evolved to the stage where they are commercially driven (as if this were a desirable goal in the first place), are eager to upgrade their trading systems so as to facilitate high-frequency trading (HFT) - a technological innovation believed to boost liquidity and enhance profits because it allows for a large number of lightning-fast trades within a minute fraction of a second.