4 ms·

There is a reason high frequency trading is typically referred to as legal front running. Sure, it's not front running by legal definition, but in practice it

• growse 6y ago
  > There is a reason high frequency trading is typically referred to as legal front running. Sure, it's not front running by legal definition, but in practice it is absolutely front running. Beating trades to the market and making micro-gains on a mass scale. It's only referred that may by people who have no idea what they're talking about. Front running isn't about "beating" anyone to anything. It's about stealing non-public information about an actor's intent to trade and using it to make trades before that information becomes public, and specifically before that trade executes. It's the theft bit which is the reason it's illegal. What HFT firms are doing is simply rushing to execute as fast as possible on generally available information. They're not acting on information that's not legally available to everyone else, because that would be illegal misuse of that information. This sort of thing is pretty easy to detect, and the SEC comes down pretty hard on it.