You seem to be taking the article's statements as facts and treating the story as a representative subsample. I don't think either is the case. Most high-frequ

You seem to be taking the article's statements as facts and treating the story as a representative subsample. I don't think either is the case. Most high-frequency trading provides liquidity to a market, not takes it, especially in US stocks. That way, you not only possibly get some edge from the bid/ask spread, you also may collect "liquidity rebates" (see http://www.batstrading.com/FeeSchedule http://www.batstrading.com/FeeSchedule for one fee schedule for an exchange that's actually founded by some high-frequency traders). There's tons of high-frequency trading that's actually gross negative (they sell for less on average than they buy), but net positive (on average, they get paid more fees than they lose gross).