I know a lot about trading and have intimate knowledge of the mechanics of algos working with developers at the cme. I dont care if you believe me or not. if you listen to what I write it will not only give you a brief history into the mkts and speed but also about how and why they work. we must start with an open free market. the garage sale. you stop by my house. i have a dvd for sale for 15 dollars. you like it and want it. you say..i will pay you bid 5 bucks for it. i laugh and say it was my sons..15. you say..crap but i need it. 10 bucks you say..the bid is 10. i counter OFFER..ok 14 dollars. you get pissed amd drive off. im stuck at with my dvd. another guy stops by and says i want that dvd. i say ok how much..well it aint worth 15..i said i know how about 12. he says well..i only have 10 bucks. i have knowledge of what other people think it is worth. the last guy left. withdrew his bid..cancelled. i want to sell. this guy wants to buy. he says look. ill buy 2 of them for 20!. i said sold. we match. he bought for 10 i sold for 10. we came up with the value. Did we need a middle man to come by HFT and as soon as i said sold at 10...the hft bought it at 10 strong armed this guy and said look. i know it was 10 but it is 10.01 now..or ill mark it up to 11. i got my 10 so i leave. the guys says shit..i need that dvd. ok its only a penny. and ken GriffenHFT made a penny. we did not need the middle man to help us find value. however..he forced himself into my transaction after he knew what i would sell for and what the buyer would buy for. he had that information. ding ding. you ever heard of informed traders. that is what they mean. they know at that microsecond what and how many shares the buyer will pay and what the seller will sell for and then he marks it up a penny. so we really want it we pay the penny. we never needed hft. infact. hft would make the cd slowly rise in price..say 10.02 10.03 10.04 until i just bought it for fear of missing out. fomo. but what if the buyer said no..i wont pay you a penny..well then the hft would say ok by..but the hft doesnt want the dvd. they want the penny. so buyer turns away. hft yells..ok ok. 9.99 man. buyer of dvd turns around and goes to hand over the 10. just then the same hft smiles n says 10.01. wife says its just a penny give it to him and lets go..that dvd will be worth 11 hopefully in a year. hft got penny. dvd owner sold for 10 and the wife got her investment dvd for 10.01. we never invited the hft middleman. electronic mkts never needed middle men. why? supply and demand. hft is only needed for huge institutions to buy stock on sell offs that are initiated by the hft. they mark up they mark down almost at the speed of light. now 1 million dvds is hard to sell all at once..well at a high price yes. but if you want to find lots of buyers you must decrease the price a lot and as buyers show up...dips in the mkt. then u slowly mark up the dvds..8, 8.01,8.02,8.10. now you have control of all the dvd sales because remember as an hft. i know at the microsecond what each buyer and seller will pay for the dvd at that instant. im informed. i use this to my advantage to make money. so i am the spread on every transaction. in the process of controlling all shares because i am fast. i also mark up or down other dvds in line to be sold..spooking buyers and sellers into hurrying up and buying or selling and paying that penny. this is spoofing. spoofing is scaring people to buy or sell that must buy or sell. it also gives me more control so if some bully tries to buy the dvds quickly i can beat him by raising the price more. so..it isnt needed in a real free market. however, as you can see. it is needed in a market that is controlled. if everyone wanted those dvds all at once you can sell a million for 6 dollars instead of 10. but then you are only getting 6 dollars. you lose 4 million. better to have a middle man and give him more information so he can mark up and down the dvds rapidly and get me an average price of 8.02. guess what folks. he keeps the 2 million that they would have all sold at 6 bucks. it is his fee. this gives the million dvds that sold with the hft middleman an artificially inflated price. it also allows full manipulation of all different dvds. it keeps the market from crashing when real people value stocks properly! its dangerous to have uncontrollable real value in this free market. this is why inflated stock prices dont make sense. but that inflation is the hft markup. buyers and sellers will always find value without middlemen. it just might be higher or lower. smart buyers and sellers eventually learn on their own they cannot sell 1million dvds at once. same with buyers. so they would match like 100,000 dvds at a time on their own. this is what a free market is. auctions have fake people that bid prices higher..so do stocks. hope this helped. all retirement investors and traders are the ones paying the markup. not the banks selling it to us thru the hft. this is called execution or executing broker.
