Technology

Legendary “Queen of the Internet”, Mary Meeker, released her annual internet trends report last week.  The lengthy presentation is fascinating from many aspects, but one of the clear takeaways is just how dominant mobile digital usage has become in society and how it is only likely to grow over time.

For example, adults now spend close to 3 hours a day consuming digital media via their phone – that’s over half of their usage and has skyrocketed since just a few years ago.

Index funds which have grown increasingly larger over the past several years generally trade during the last half hour of the day.  Computer trading models have picked up on this trend and have funneled more of their trading volume toward this time period as well.  Seems innocent enough, but the result is that there a noticeably lower level of liquidity for stocks during the day.   That means that the cost of trading during the less liquid mid-day period is higher and the potential for big price swings is greater.  For now, most traders are aware but not overly concerned, but if we experien