The Transmission of Information

It has been a busy week back with activities and closing out shop at my current job before moving on to the new position. Sorry posting has been light, but just too much going on.

StockTwits Presents at Harvard University
Tuesday night offered a rare treat as I was able to attend a symposium at Harvard University conducted by some of the StockTwits writers. Named "Trading in the Wild" the presentation covered some big picture strategy and overall condition of markets for the younger students. You can see two wonderful recaps at the links below:
Investing Freak has a great recap with audio of the talks here:
Stocktwits Symposium With Josh Brown, J.C Parets, Todd Sullivan & Phil Pearlman
Eli Radke, whom I finally got to meet, has another well written article:
Brief Overview of @StockTwits Symposium at Harvard

Excellent job everyone.

The Transmission of Information
Between the symposium on Tuesday and a discussion I had today on Twitter with Kevin Depew about the recent spike in the AAII Investor Sentiment bearish readings (42% end of last week) I started thinking about how things have changed in the way information flows as well as possible changes in how people may be both reacting to, and responding to inputs market related.


This is a work in progress so tonight I just want to give a general idea about what I am thinking. A visual may help (for those mechanically inclined):

This is a continuously variable transmission.

Maybe you remember those old heavy clutch manual transmissions. Today's automatic transmissions are smooth but a CV transmission is the definition of silky. A CV trans also has less moving parts. It is able to respond to input instantly and adapt the drive to any need of the vehicle. Stay with me.

Today market information passes fast, and through such channels as blogs and Twitter the lag time for information flow has dropped to nanoseconds. Leigh Drogen's killer site Estimize even has begun to change reaction to earnings news by allowing the best stock watchers a forum to provide more realistic earnings numbers for comparison. It goes on and on.

And so my question in light of the following:
-Zero lag for financial information flow
-What was once insider "knowledge" that had controlled dissemination now makes the rounds freely
-Financial conditions are no longer an "also ran" for the regular news cycle; after the banking crisis market stories very often lead national news broadcasts
-The reduction (maybe removal) of retail money from markets (Mom and Pop)

Could the speed of light transfer of information and the concentration of market professionals in the same pool of money be changing readings and metrics? Are investment time frames compressing because the window for an edge has become smaller?

I will have more on this in a future post but sound off in the comments.

Have a good night.