You're correct. It just means BATS is processing a lot of orders. I'm guessing LIFFE, LSE etc process far more. The articles conclusion is comepletey erreneous

You're correct. It just means BATS is processing a lot of orders. I'm guessing LIFFE, LSE etc process far more. The articles conclusion is comepletey erreneous - this has nothing to do with HFT. Edit: And wrt to retail investors "competing" agianst HFT - they're not. A retail investor is not interested in expoiting very short-lived pricing discrepancies between different contracts (or perhaps the same/equivalent contracts that trade on multiple exchanges). A retail investor is just that - an _investor_ - who holds the stock.