thanks Aksier, that was a great summary. Originally, it was the little guys (geek types) who worked on automated trading and HFT, in order to beat the big boys/instos but now they've been bought out by them. The big questions for retail traders are;
1. how is it going to affect us as traders, are we going to be at a disadvantage? how?
2. what can we do to combat/avoid/counteract any problems, in other words how do we beat them?
