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Honestly, I don't understand how they're legal, either. HFT just seems like the most naked of naked cash grabs in finance.
by Loughla 3y ago
Honestly, I don't understand how they're legal, either. HFT just seems like the most naked of naked cash grabs in finance.
- lxgr 3y agoThis seems to be a common sentiment – but do you know what HFTs actually do, and why it works? I was pretty skeptical too, but the more I look into it, the more it just boils down to market making (providing liquidity) and arbitrage (improving price quality across exchanges). There might be dirty tricks there too – I'm only speaking for legal trading practices here. And if an HFT makes its profit using illegal methods, what's the difference between that and other financial crimes like insider trading, collusion to frontrunning etc.? I don't really get the (to me somewhat irrational/uninformed) focus on HFTs, when things like payment for order flow probably "siphons off" just as much from retail investors' trades.