Computer science and statistics. The most demanded new entrants in the profession are either from research background (such as machine learning or statistics applied in biology/genetics) or from companies leading in IT infrastructure such as Google or IBM.
Be cautious. Regulations may quickly completely change the HFT playing field--making it obsolete. Just a heads up prior to embarking on schooling with a HFT goal.
fear monger. do you think these regulations are worldwide? Whereever there is money to be made people will go (or set up their servers). And if these regulations are ever set people will take advantage of them some how. as far as major, math and science... what else is there
For a college education with the highest probability of finding internships during school and jobs opportunities after, there is no other choice. This is where all the jobs are. Also, these skills are portable to other sectors of the market. I would also try to be located in a city where the jobs are located, like NYC, so internships are available while your in school. Good luck.
I assume you're referring to the Market Access Rule 15c3-5. This will be a temporary issue that time and money will solve.
Probably risky to set one's heart on a career on HFT -- more and more competition in the HFT space is making firms do more work to get ever small fractions of a penny in profit. Most (although by no means all) HFT trades are on the liquidity-providing, and there's only so much of this that can be done as the volume of liquidity-taking trades (the opposite side) is limited, and declining. On the other hand, well-regarded CS and (practical) stat/math degrees may be a good choice (for the long-term job market) regardless, if you've got the interest and ability.
are subpenny orders are allowed worldwide? or posting huge sizes without any intention to buy? or placing and canceling 50000 pointless orders per second..how about 80+ trading venues,where buyers and sellers can buy and sell shares, instead of one exchange? name some other countries who allow you to do that
These issues, while undesirable and (I'd say) in need of remedy in the US, have little to do with the relative use of HFT in other countries. The notion that HFT is only about unfair manipulation is generally an excuse used to justify failure to compete in an ever-more competitive market, hence the disproportionate coverage on EliteTrader. That said, quote stuffing and fragmentation are issues that really do need to be addressed, e.g. perhaps by charging a very small amount per placed order, although determining that charge could be a can of worms in itself as the price for this would have to be very small ($.001/order? less? more? no idea) to avoid significantly increasing the cost of trading highly liquid names such as AAPL. (Such a charge would be very bad if were paid to the government, as it would easily became a backdoor FTT (and would easily be increased and grind liquidity to a halt), so I'd say it would have to be income for the exchanges used to offset the existing maker/taker or taker/maker pricing structures. I think it would also be very bad if it applied to some traders but not to others.) Another suggestion is to have a minimum time per order, say 1 second, but I really don't know how long this should be, either, as I am not in the HFT business myself. But anyways, there is actually a lot of HFT in Europe -- e.g., Dutch Optiver is not only one of the largest HFT firms in Europe, but also one of the most significant in the USA.