[michaelt]

  there is no way HFT is less important than traffic lights
  one keeps the economy of the world flowing, the other 
  stops people getting driving tickets.

The New York Stock Exchange is closed for 17.5 hours each day, and the entire weekend. I doubt the world economy is going to stop flowing if they're closed for an extra second - or even if a few people take their systems offline for several minutes to restart them.

[brobinson]

Stocks are a very, very small part of the financial markets. Forex and futures markets are open most of the week and a lot more money flows through them. Forex alone accounts for about five trillion USD per DAY of money movement. Stocks are barely a blip on the radar in comparison.

[kasey_junk]

And yet all of the major exchanges have mandated down times that even small e-retail operators would kill for.

This thread has reached sort of silly proportions. Of course electronic trading impacts most people's lives even if they don't want it to, but in reality the markets are largely self correcting at this level, so even if there is some oddity associated with the leap second it likely won't have long term (or maybe even observable) impact on the wider world.

[brobinson]

Agreed on all points!