I think Average Joe has quite a lot of disadvantages compared to some hedge fund or whatever it is that does HFT. Do you really think the only difference between them is a millisecond? That's only between HFT traders.
My point was that other advantages/disadvantages are not being cared about, not that we should provide milisecond access to Average Joe.
Of course the Average Joe has disadvantages compared to a hedge fund or people who are experts in a field and spend the bulk of their life dedicated to some aspect that the Average Joe is not dedicated towards.
If Average Joe wants returns comparable to these hedge funds, then they should stop trying to time to market and instead stick to diversified ETFs and stop worrying about millisecond differences in the stock market.
Believe it or not, if Average Joe does that they can actually beat most hedge funds over a long time horizon [1].
I mean, you could also write "of course whoever has servers closer to the exchange can do HFT better". "Of course companies that invested a lot in having servers closer will reap the advantages."
No, expertise is not the difference. If you're a private person with 100 years experience in trading, you still can't do HFT. You need to be an instutition, have lots of capital to invest in servers, software development maintainance etc. As a private person I think you don't even get access to the API.
"Of course whoever has more capital has advantages in the market"? Of course they do, but I don't think "of course they should".
For this discussion, that funds don't beat the market average over a long term is irrelevant. Why not say "who cares you get more latency than the other bank, if you want money just invest in S&P500 and long term you'll beat them". But you don't apply that to banks against banks, only to banks against Joe. Why?
>of course whoever has servers closer to the exchange can do HFT better
Can do better at what? Can get their trade in the order book faster? Yes they can. But does that automatically mean they will make more money? No it does not.
>If you're a private person with 100 years experience in trading, you still can't do HFT.
Of course not, 100 years ago there were no computers. Having 100 years of experience in trading on the pit would not give you any expertise in software development.
Someone with 10 thousand years of experience plowing can't compete against someone with a tractor. That's kind of the point of the tractor...
I'm sorry that it disturbs you that the Average Joe sitting at home with his discount online brokerage account is unable to gain the same kind of benefits putting out individual orders here and there on speculative stocks that he likely knows nothing about, that hedge funds, institutions, and other highly specialized and skilled professionals are able to gain by doing this for a living.
The Average Joe does have access to highly diversified and low fee ETFs, and as I said the Average Joe can reap almost all of the rewards that the best hedge funds and banks do by sticking to those instead of trying to play the market.
My point was that other advantages/disadvantages are not being cared about, not that we should provide milisecond access to Average Joe.