Definition

Wall Street shorthand for arbitrage, the art of buying low in one market and selling high in another while everyone else is too slow to notice the price difference. It's basically legal financial alchemy practiced by traders who've figured out how to profit from inefficiencies before algorithms do it faster. The dream job for people who think finding a quarter on the sidewalk is exciting, except scaled up to millions of dollars and requiring a Bloomberg terminal.

Example Usage

The arb opportunity disappeared within milliseconds as high-frequency trading bots detected the price discrepancy and exploited it before human traders could even click their mice.

Source: Financial industry terminology

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