Quote from walterjennings:
Beating other HFTs is 'easy'. All you have to do is accept less of an avg profit margin than they do per share traded. That is, if your cost structure will allow for that. At least, thats the case when it comes to spread games, stat arb and HFT stat market making. The person who is willing to take the least profit, gets the liquidity (offers the best deal to the other side of the trade), and as we all know HFT is all about catching that limited liquidity.
Trading inside is the least important variable in the equation.
the HFT guys. All my goal is to alleviate the painful lag as much as i can with using reasonable resources.