Perhaps I am missing something but what is actually "fake" about the volume. From my seat a trade is a trade and if the price moves against or for me those are REAL as far as my account NAV goes. I don't have much of an opinion on HFT so maybe thats why I am not against it. I also generally agree with many of BLSH posts but have a hard time getting my head around the idea that a computer (or any trader) is going to see three orders that total less than a thousand shares on any given stock and start to buy it with the thoughts that it spotted a "real" buyer with a lot more shares to buy and that they will make money off of that (At the same time I am aware of alogros that looks to get very small gains so maybe its just I think that example is pretty weak) For the most part I would not be against the HFT as long as everyone knows its happening (as we all do now). We can choose to engage the market or not too. On its face to me it doesn't appear that regulating it gone is anything more than a "feel good" restriction. I don't think it will change my PnL at the end of the year but if there are traders out there who think it will change their PnL I will be glad to listen as to why. Best Robert
Goldman is feeling a lot of heat these days. They're just being smart in not raising more trouble with outlandish spending. But people really ought to continue the pressure on these thieves until they're broken up into several smaller units ala AT&T!