How did HFT make me rich???? Not going to get into an HFT debate again. Anyone who trades for a living knows HFT is legalized front running and has destroyed the integrity of the market.
they are making most of their money from overtimes. lots education required to get to RN. i know one kid,who is into this career. his plan is simple-once got licensed-go to Dubai,make top dollars then come back to USA. sounds good to me.
i don't want to get into an HFT-debate either, but the assumption that markets used to be somehow "fair" then and are not fair now is completely false imo: it has never been fair in the first place. there has been a power shift, the guys and girls that used to have an edge lost it to the hft-folks. i sympathize with or hate neither.
for a 10001 more time-yes, i agree that the markets never been fair,but what i've observed over my years of trading stocks-they never been unfair THIS MUCH. there is a group of "chosen ones" and rest of us. and i i said many times-unfortunately i see this 'separation' in every sector of US economy.. think about subpenny orders. we, as a retail -can't even see them in our platforms. cause all we got is a 2 digits of decimal point. can you see the guy,bidding at what appears to be same price,but in reality it's 0.00001 better than yours? can you see this guy in your platform? cause at IB-i can't even see it. forget about placing orders at 0.000001 better.
15-20 years ago we didn't even have a platform, you used the phone to trade against astronomical commissions, outdated price quotes and diabolical spreads. i don't think the market has become less fair, on the contrary. i do think there's still room for improvement though obv.
i wasn't around 20 years ago, can't really speak about that time,but i've been observing things and trade every single day for last 10 years and it's stinks now. here is another perfect example how stinky this market is(see pic). at least i'm pretty sure you can buy at ask 20 years ago. no such thing now. no guarantee of any kind.(off course not,when you broker is trading against you and can sell your info for a profit) you doesn't seems to be understanding the problem.. back in a day(20 years or whatever)-here is the bid,here is ask-you want it-you buy. today-you want to buy at ask-oooops...shares gone,right after you click buy(no one was there 5 minutes ago) the regulations (and regulators) are against you,not just f** MM.