"a billion dollar fiber optic" has to come from someplace. Money costs money, which is the basic tenet of finance. If an HFT company invests a few hundred milli

"a billion dollar fiber optic" has to come from someplace. Money costs money, which is the basic tenet of finance. If an HFT company invests a few hundred million Dollars into the trading system, the profit better beat the market. That's why I think that there are probably enough competitors in the HFT sector to squeeze the profits. The investors who "switch to iEX" are money managers who have to place orders to diversify a portfolio. Without the new strategy they essentially pay some extra money to intermediary traders. The value of intermediary traders is hard to grasp. They do carry the risk inherent in their positions, and they provide liquidity by bridging the time-gap between the intention to buy and the intention to sell. iEX basically seems to offer their clients the chance to bridge this gap themselves by cleverly dispersing orders over different markets and obfuscating their intentions. Finance is a fascinating technology in itself...