[tptacek]

No they aren't. One of the largest and hands-down most respected mutual fund companies in the world, Vanguard, the company that inspired the "Bogleheads" movement, publicly stated last year that HFT had helped them, by driving down spreads.

The fact is that credible pension funds don't make their money by competing with sell-side firms. When your only job is sporadically making large block trades, you're happy to see spreads competed down as far as they can go. You don't care which market makers are winning the race to provide the cheapest possible liquidity.

Claims that buy-and-hold funds are victimized by HFT are hard to square with what Vanguard said, and with the logic of how automated trading works.