Forum Post: Mega-Scandal Waiting to Happen: Market Manipulation through High Frequency Trading

Most Americans on Main Street believe the market is rigged and with good reason. Pension funds and mutual funds, where we have invested most our retirement savings, are not safe from the machinations of Wall Street. Investors are chum in a sea of sharks. High-frequency algorithmic traders have cornered the stock market because they control market volume. Public outrage is yet to manifest itself because many people wrongly believe this type of computerized trading scandal is too difficult to fathom. The results are all you need to know: high frequency trading generates over 70% of market volume and over 70% of investment bank profits. It is statistically impossible to make huge profits every single trading day unless you are cheating. It’s that simple. Investors are tired of getting front-run and pumped-and-dumped by high frequency algorithmic trading, which dominates market activity. Investors cannot depend on the Securities and Exchange Commission to protect them from market manipulation because the Commission is populated with ex-Wall Street employees. The liquidity that high frequency trading provides is fragile and will quickly disappear when a large imbalance between buy and sell orders is detected by programmed computers. The playing field is tilted in favor of Wall Street traders and no one seems to care, certainly not the regulators whom the traders have in their hip pocket. Exposition of this mega-scandal will destroy Wall Street’s money machine and public outrage will certainly lead to criminal charges that have thus far eluded the bankstas.