Postmodern time-space compression - Time-Space Compression: Historical Geographies - page 186

networks in astonishing volumes. In this context, finance capital is not simply

mobile, it is hypermobile . The hypermobile world is one in which capital
moves in a continual surge of speculative investment that never materializes
in physical, tangible goods. The world's currency markets, for example, trade
more than $1 trillion every day, dwar

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ng the $25 billion that changes hands
daily to cover global trade in goods and services. Disembedded from place,
fi

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es even the most
quick-footed of state institutions. National borders mean little in this con-
text: it is far easier to move $1 billion from New York to Tokyo than a
truckload of grapes from California to Arizona (Kurtzman 1993). In the
securities markets, global telecommunications systems facilitated the emer-
gence of 24 hour/day trading, linking stock markets through computerized
trading programs. As Gregory (1994:381) puts it, “the hypermobility of
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financial capital operates with an agility and speed that de fi

finance capital has set in motion waves of time-space compression of unpre-
cedented intensity.”
Telecommunications also threaten the agglomerative advantages of large,
dense urban regions, particularly the cost and uncertainty reductions accom-
plished through face-to-face communications. The National Association of
Security Dealers Automated Quotation system (NASDAQ), for example, has
emerged as the world's largest stock market; unlike the New York, London,
or Tokyo exchanges, NASDAQ lacks a trading

floor, connecting millions of
traders worldwide electronically (Figure 5.3). Similarly, Paris, Belgium,
Spain, Vancouver, and Toronto all recently abolished their trading

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floors in
favor of screen-based trading. Such events point to the relatively short—
and decreasing—time horizons within which places may enjoy comparative
advantages.
The changing industrial structure of telecommunications is central to
understanding the politics of postmodern time-space compression. Across
the planet, deregulation, privatization, and new communications technologies

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Figure 5.3 Annual number of shares traded on NASDAQ and New York Stock
Exchange, 1975-2001.