HFT is manipulating the pricing so that it is no longer worth it for you to buy it, therefore fleecing you of the profits you would have made if they weren't there.
Of course, this is not illegal (it's like any other type of trading, pushing up the value so it goes beyond what you're willing to pay) - but it's achieved by using robots in such a way that normal humans can't hope to compete.
Of course, you can build your own robots (ie your own HFT software) to take advantage of the weaknesses of existing HFT programs, but if you can do this, you would be working at an ibank as a quant of some kind.
Yes, but what the parent poster described is moronic for an HFT to do. If they see a limit order come in, there is no incentive to push the price beyond the limit order. Why would that help them in any way? There is no implication that the person issuing the limit order will suddenly decide to pay more.
Additionally, to push the price up in the first place, it means the HFTs have to buy all of the stock being sold below the target price, which is taking on major risk. There is no guarantee that there isn't someone simultaneously dumping big chunks of shares at given price targets.
> HFT is manipulating the pricing so that it is no longer worth it for you to buy it, therefore fleecing you of the profits you would have made if they weren't there.
This makes no sense to me. Are you claiming that HFT purposefully drives up the value of every single stock? How would they even do that? And why?
My limit is the price at which I thought that stock was worth buying. If the price never falls that far, then I wouldn't want to buy it anyway.