Flash Boys was pretty inaccurate. https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/michael-lewis-shilling-for-the-buyside/ https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2014

Flash Boys was pretty inaccurate. https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/michael-lewis-shilling-for-the-buyside/ https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/michael-lewis-... Remember that most retail investor orders never hit the exchange because your brokerage firm is selling the orderflow to a HFT firm. Overall, you can say the benefit is that spreads are cheaper to cross for investors. But, you could also make the counter-argument that if things became slightly more difficult to buy or sell, this inertia would prevent retail investors from over-trading by taking a long-term view.