On-line trading as a renewal process: Waiting time and inspection paradox

We briefly review our recent studies on stochastic processes modelling internet on-line trading. We present a way to evaluate the average waiting time between the observation of the price in financial markets and the next price change, especially in an on-line foreign exchange trading service for individual customers via the internet. The basic method of our approach depends on the so-called renewal-reward theorem. Assuming that the stochastic process modelling the price change is a renewal process, we use the theorem to calculate the average waiting time of the process. The so-called ``inspection paradox'' is discussed, which, in general, means that the average durations is shorter than the average waiting time.