HFT as Enabler

Docter please
Some more of these
Outside the door
She took four more
--The Rolling Stones

In his always interesting market commentary, Minyanville's Jeff Cooper wonders whether the Fed's QE program has been facilitated by high frequency trading.

"Few market participants have suggested that if the Fed has a mandate to keep the market buoyant, it may be enabled by high freduency trading (HFT)."

Have been thinking precisely the same thing.

Black box algos are opaque. The confusion that they create in markets could easily disguise the actions of non-economic buyers with alternative agendas.

At the very least, trend-following algorithms can perpetuate market movement in one direction. Until they don't, of course...

Much of the sudden public outrage over HFT might be muted if it was revealed that HFT has been a mechanism for higher asset prices over the past few years.