Leading retail stockbroker Charles Schwab has followed up on the release of Michael Lewis' compelling Flash Boys book on high-frequency trading with a statement that strongly condemns high-frequency trading as a "cancer":
High-frequency traders are gaming the system, reaping billions in the process and undermining investor confidence in the fairness of the markets. It's a growing cancer and needs to be addressed. If confidence erodes further, the fuel of our free-enterprise system, capital formation, is at risk. We can't allow that to happen. For sure, we still believe investing in equities is a primary path to long-term wealth creation, and we believe in the long-term structural integrity of the markets to deliver that over time for individual investors, which is all the more reason to be vigilant in removing anything that creates unfair advantage or undermines investor confidence.
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