The time within which shareholders seek to make profit, through a flow of dividends or a share price movement, is determined by the time for which they hold a particular share. And the average holding time for equity investment, whether by individuals or institutions, has relentlessly fallen: from four years in 1945 to eight months in 2000, two months in 2008 and (with the rise of high-frequency trading) twenty-two seconds by 2011 in the US.
