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Comment by Arainach | Hacker News Reader

HFT isn't necessary for cheap online trading. You can have bulk transactions execute once per day for very low cost and that's good enough for an efficient market. Companies spending billions to beat other bidders by milliseconds is just rent extraction with computers.

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it isn't good enough for an efficient market. this is a common idea amongst people who have never traded. if it was possible to trade this way, it would happen already. this is how some non-equity markets trade. equities do not trade this way because people do not want it. the system we already have has ludicrously low costs.

> because people do not want it

No, it's because people who stand to make money off it want it.

Society is full of examples of things that people want and that would save money and make a lot of sense that are blocked by people rent seeking off the status quo. Free tax filing provided by the government is one particularly obvious example.

Of course...they want to make money off it so they exploit everyone...but no-one else wants to make money selling it cheaper...

No, the problem is that people see rent-seeking behaviour everywhere where it doesn't exist. If you think you can do it better...do it.

"Do it better" doesn't work for monopolies. A company offering trades at lower intervals doesn't work when the NYSE etc. controls the actual platform, the minimum fees, the granularity of transactions, etc.

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