[rrrrsss99]

An interesting data point in the hft rigged market debate I never see is, what do the insiders do with their money? I work at an electronic market maker that trades on colocated servers with fpgas and rents bandwidth on microwaves, so we without a doubt fall under the hft umbrella. My 401k is 100% invested in index funds and my personal brokerage account is split between 80% vanguard index etfs and a few stocks (that I probably shouldn't have invested in, but I didn't know what I was doing when I got started). This is similar to my coworkers and people I know at other firms. Why would we do this if we were knowingly rigging the market against retail investors? To answer my own question, if you're an investor, the microstructure of the exchanges is irrelevant. When I put in an order to by 100 shares of VTI, I'll put in a limit order after the close a half percent above the closing price knowing that it will be sold to citadel or another internalizer who will fill the order at a good price (nbbo, debatable since they're being investigated currently) and take the penny or two spread. I could put in a limit for the close, but either I wouldn't get filled or if I did, it would only be due to the market moving against me and honestly the difference doesn't matter. I have no intent to sell at a particular profit point or watch a screen all day to find some imagined perfect entry point which I wouldn't even know if I saw it. I'm interested to hear if opponents of hft have considered this or think insiders are behaving differently. I won't make the argument that we're looking out for the little guy or we have some mission to benefit society through price discovery. We basically print money when the market goes down, but we're so far removed from the average person that I can only assume that the hatred is based on marketing and false perception.