Your argument boils down to they're trading too much, it scares me, make them stop. That's not a logical argument. Whether they're economically beneficial or n

Your argument boils down to they're trading too much, it scares me, make them stop. That's not a logical argument. Whether they're economically beneficial or not is simply not relevant, people have a right to buy and sell stocks for whatever reason they want whether it's beneficial to the market or not. They shouldn't have to defend themselves for buying and selling stock. HFT'ers simply do this a lot, so any objection against them is an objection to the either the speed at which they do it or the volumes they do it in, neither of which should be relevant to you. You shouldn't be able to tell someone they can't trade because they're too fast at it. Said proposed tax is nothing more than people who can't compete trying to punish those who can because they don't understand why they're losing. HFT has improved the market for everyone involved, spreads are lower, liquidity is higher, everyone pays far less for trades than ever before. There's no reason at all to regulate it that isn't simply fear based.