http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Insiders-Perspective-High-Frequency-ebook/dp/B00P0QI2M2

A good antidote to "Flash Boys" and IEX

From the 1 star review seems the book is full of errors? Anyone with critical thinking read it? is it worth? Or just a biased account?

I am 1/3 of the way through, and so far it's much much more unbiased than flash boys, which was practically an IEX marketing piece. (IMHO)

I think IEX is really not the point of flash boys, the main point is the the premises of HFT is that market is not fair and you can gain an edge being faster. Will brokers exploit your order if they can? Will exchanges exploit your orders if they can? of course, collocation is a huge business.

Does anyone think HFT would work at all without arbitrage and other exploiting strategies? The truth is the whole system is opaque. Until exchanges make their trading algorithm public open source I have no reason to trust them.

The main argument of HFT exploits are based on a logical fallacy which is basically is:

20 years ago market was not efficient and clients would pay way more now we make market efficient and spreads are smaller. A while back I even asked Interactive Broker to disclose their algorithm they use to liquidate positions. Will they do it? no way lol and of course they would never admit they have some part of their system trying to exploit the system.

A while back I heard that a group of HFT were trying to create a broker with 0 commission. How is that possible 0 commission but they still have to pay the exchange for commission. Well I guess they can just exploit their clients like parasites.

That was long on hyperbole and short on facts, thus I fear the HFT debate has been reprised and I politely withdraw. I encourage you to do your due diligence on the realities of market microstructure, and to be critical of the squeakiest wheels.

Which facts are you looking for? you haven't given any argument so far I can read. You post in a thread called "At the risk of reprising the HFT debate" claiming a book was a marketing piece for IEX then two post later still without any argument you withdraw yourself with an ad hominem. If you don't think HFT are harmful just keep feeding them and no worries.

Here is the source code for Island, as of ten years ago: http://www.josh.com/notes/island-ecn-10th-birthday/

Presumably all the parasitic, exploitative code has been added since then, and it's top secret.

Really, you think that is transparency? a section of a source code from what? 11 years ago? which is not used any-more from 1 exchange? And you want that is the evidence for what? the flash boys was a marketing stunt for IEX? or that HFT are good because one exchange released a section of their source code?

Here is a good place to learn about Market micro-structure
http://blog.quantopian.com/iex-head-of-product-designing-a-fair-stock-exchange/

Truth is if someone pay enough he will get advantage over others, say faster execution, jumping the queue, order books, whatever they do with these information is nothing to do with the exchange. But are the exchange favouring those who pay them the co-location $$$ and the extra data $$$, or special order types? I think that it is obvious isn't it? Why would someone pay otherwise?

BTW I find high-frequency trading fascinating and extremely interesting if there was something around here in Zurich I would sure check it out, But as a software engineer not as an investor.

EDIT: Changed my mind, I am not going to reprise the HFT debate any further. I watched the videos and they certainly add nothing new, so there's not much more to talk about.