brb , gonna bust out my Singed support with Smite . <| sep |> Give it a go ! Can ' t guarantee they ' ll accept it in the ragecomic sub , though . <| sep |> Because at the time it seemed like the only option . <| sep |> That link is extremely out dated and doesn ' t really explain its claims the entire refutement is about 30 words long . For the first strike , it isn ' t true that market makers sell all at the end of each day many don ' t . Even though some do , that doesn ' t take away from the liquidity that they provide during the day ie . when trading is occurring . Strike 2 is also unfair . Market making was initially carried out by high frequency trading firms , but has for the most part since become unprofitable due to larger institutions carrying out the service for free . That still counts as HFT , but isn ' t carried out to make profit . The final strike doesn ' t really back up the author ' s claim anyway . If you give me a sell order , but in the meanwhile the market has crashed , you don ' t want me to sell anymore . regulation the UK vehemently opposed in order to keep the City competitive , which you seem to hint at yourself in your last paragraph . The UK has more regulation for the City than most EU countries . That ' s one of it ' s appeals . The problem comes when less well though out regulations are being suggested and voted for by countries with nothing to lose . What do they care if a chunk of the UK ' s financial businesses face hard timesgo bust if it means more money going into the EU pot that they share from ? I ' m not saying speculators per se don ' t provide a useful function in our economy , and you would never see me make such a claim . Apologies . That ' s what I thought you were suggesting when you said as well as make professional speculators contribute something to the actual economy . Edit also , looking at that link , the top comment has basically torn it apart . I should have mentioned that there are many more forms of HFT than market makers . Looking at that website , it appears to be an amateur blog that gives personal finance tips . It ' s weird that he ' s branched so far away from that to attack something he doesn ' t appear to understand . frequencytrading . asp ' s a more informed source which lists the benefits as well as the downsides of HFT .