Flash orders are weapons used on both sides of the arms race. I was just referring to the 'legal frontrunning' a lot of these algorithms are trying to achieve.

Flash orders are weapons used on both sides of the arms race. I was just referring to the 'legal frontrunning' a lot of these algorithms are trying to achieve. A few pennies? What do you mean by that? High speed trading only nets fractions of a cent per trade, yes, but by the time a big order actually gets filled, you could be talking a few pennies per share, or more. Another part of the tax that I'm referring to is the cost of keeping pace in the arms race (or hiring people to do it for you). That certainly makes a difference to the kind of low-margin funds that might be trading because they have to more than because they want to, which also happen to be the kind of funds that most people who don't realize they're invested in the stock market are invested in (which is where the positives and negatives come in, imo).