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Foman is my favorite moderator. <3
Posted by: RighteousTyrant
That's all well and good but it doesn't really address what I mentioned.
I don't really have a problem with that personally - really you should be more concerned about companies lying in the first place and creating a situation where a hedge fund thinks it practical to pay someone a lot of money to detect those lies.
Posted by: RighteousTyrant
engage in high-frequency trading to make money off of the market in ways the individual investor can only dream of.
Often villified, not really understood.
For one, high frequency trading has narrowed the bid/ask spread for you and me and improved market liquidity. Used to be back in the day, the bid price on a stock was $5.00 and the ask was $5.20 - with the advent of high frequency, spreads have narrowed and created a much less volatile trading market for market order purchases. Nearly every stock has penny spreads now. Hell, most people don't even do limit orders anymore like they used to deal with bid/ask spread issues - which used to cost more per trade back in the day when they executed.
And besides, High frequency trading for you and me would be wholly unprofitable and entirely too risky. Would you be willing to buy 100,000 shares of Apple for $55,000,000 in order to risk market movement to sell for $55,000,100 a few seconds later to capture a penny a share? Do you have the money for it? Would you risk it? I know I wouldn't. Trading firms spend millions developing these systems, and a lot of them have lost a lot of money on trades and trade directions gone wrong.
[Edited on 01.03.2013 12:37 PM PST]