One of my college roommates is an algorithmic high frequency trader. It always reminded me slightly of a legal version of the Superman 3/Office Space scam. Basically trade so fast whenever your algorithm sees the line go up the right way that you harvest tiny amounts all day before the humans actually making financially relevant decisions make the market move in larger chunks for actual economic reasons.
It’s taking money while providing literally zero value to anyone else, even your fellow finance bros.
The thing that gets me about HFT is that the market itself could automatically facilitate price inversion trades. There’s literally zero need for these middlemen.
![Capital [Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1735062137-20241224.png){kind=link}
One of my college roommates is an algorithmic high frequency trader. It always reminded me slightly of a legal version of the Superman 3/Office Space scam. Basically trade so fast whenever your algorithm sees the line go up the right way that you harvest tiny amounts all day before the humans actually making financially relevant decisions make the market move in larger chunks for actual economic reasons.
It’s taking money while providing literally zero value to anyone else, even your fellow finance bros.
The thing that gets me about HFT is that the market itself could automatically facilitate price inversion trades. There’s literally zero need for these middlemen.