Ask HN: Can a bill be introduced to stop HFT?

There is already a trading fee which equates to 'Robin hood tax'. Each platform has their own number for e.g. scottrade charges $7 for each buy and sell. I think HFT traders don't pay that fee for each trade.

HFT is just evil. Direction less buy\selling based on the trend that is currently prevalent in the market.

One of the biggest reasons for market crash is automated selling that gets started by computers.

I think the documentation is there, it's just the publication that's not there (whether things are just under-noticed/published or intentionally buried who knows).

For what it's worth, I support the idea of a "fractional penny tax" on trades as a marketable solution to let the "free market" fix HFT. I've mostly seen it advocated by David Brin, but Congress could easily levy a tax on trading that would be some fraction of a penny (say a tenth or a hundredth of a penny). For a human scale trader that tax is a rounding error (essentially in our favor) at best and a loose change issue at worst (pull a couple pennies from your couch cushion). For HFT it's a legitimate concern and something that HFT would have to take into account. It probably wouldn't stop HFT (but that becomes a market decision if the extra "friction" from the tax is worth the "benefits" of the HFT in a cost/benefit analysis), but it might slow it down a bit, and the taxes raised by it could hopefully be put into mitigation efforts against the worst effects of HFT.