Broken Markets - Review
Introduction
The authors begin their introductory chapter stating that gone are the days when the primary purpose of stock market was capital allocation. Instead, they say,
The primary purpose of the stock exchanges has devolved to catering to a class of highly profitable market participants called high frequency traders, or HFTs, who are interested only in hyper-short term trading, investors, be damned
Indeed if one looks at some of the basic numbers that drive volumes, it is clear that HFT firms have become exchanges’ biggest customers.