The number of organized hacking syndicates targeting financial institutions around the world is growing at a disturbingly fast rate. And so is the number of banks willing to pay these high-tech extortionists hush money to protect their reputations, according to a security expert at The World Bank.

A nuclear attack on New York City wouldn't be enough to stop stock trading, if the New York Stock Exchange gets its way. It's thinking of moving from its home of the past 210 years to build a second exchange, perhaps in an underground bunker, so the market could open the day after.

Researchers have found an increased level of predictability in certain complex systems just before large changes that may be able to provide warning of stock market crashes. Such changes, they say, can be the result of information encoded within the system's global state.

In June, a computer its creators call the most powerful ever built for commercial use (and the fifth most powerful in the world) will go online in Los Angeles. The machine, as yet unnamed, will be dedicated to one goal: beating Wall Street.