Quote from onelot:
it's not nanex's clock that was off [for the fed data analysis piece the did that you're referring to]. it's that they use SIP timestamps for their analysis, and they don't factor into the equation the SIP latency.
basically, the SIP is where all the exchanges send their direct feeds to, which calculates the public NBBO, but it takes time for it to process. ~1-2 ms during normal activity, and more during heightened activity. nanex was making the incorrect assumption that the SIP timestamps were reliable and reflected actual trade/quote times.
the only way nanex could have done a reliable study on this, is if they had machines colo'd at each exchange, were pulling each direct feed, had a syncrhonized GPS time clock across each location, and were creating a picture from that.
the only thing they were able to prove, is lack of reliability/resolution of the SIP timestamp. also, they were able to prove that it's probably better to make sure your data is good before crying fraud from the rooftops. would have saved them some embarrassment.