In HFT there is no "level playing field". Truth is that 99.9% of participants don't have the necessary backing to compete with Getco, Hudson River trading, Tradebot, and the other HFT shops that literally print money EVERYDAY. The average guy can't spend a few million a month on racks of co-located servers, high speed computers, infrastructure, and salaries. Thanks to the tags attached to every order, the algo's know everyone's entry, position, size, and exit point. And they use that to dry up bids/offers and move a stock away from your position on no volume. Anyone who has been trading for longer than 3 years and moves any kind of size can see that the markets have become a joke. There is no real liquidity, just algo's flipping the same shares back and forth for rebates.
When you discover that every trade is a currency trade, you'll discover why that happens. I assure you, it's no tag-based omniscient computer.
I never said it was one computer. I said every order has a tag i.d. which has a ton of information on it which the algo's use.
the only issue i really see is that hft firms get the privileges of acting like a registered market maker but with none of the obligations of actually being one. theyre trying to have their cake and eat it. but then this gig always was about free money, enterprise and speed of action - so you cant blame them for trying! as for spoof orders, thats a null argument. if the order is in the book you can hit it. believe me, i know a few people working at the bigger hft firms and they are struggling with other hft sweep algos that deliberately go and prang such orders. lets face it. if youre a hft firm, you too will have an axe to grind against hft, because unless youre citadel, there will ALWAYS be another hft firm somewhere, faster than you.
If I'm not mistaken, you don't get all the benefits of acting like a registered MM. When they put short restrictions out there, aren't MMs exempt? They were back in 2008, when they were the only ones who could short financials.