There is nothing positive that can be said of a financial network that front runs customer orders, but Philip Delves Broughton's editorial "Flash Boys for the People" certainly tries. Whether the small investor benefits is a laughable side issue as if High Frequency Traders ever had good intentions for them. Not mentioning trust is the fatal flaw in his argument.
A bank that throws customer orders to an exchange that pays them for the privilege of taking the order to front run, buy before the customer and sell back at a higher price is a practice long considered untrustworthy of an agent, is guilty of taking advantage of its client. It is surprising there are any customers left on a Wall Street best described as being in the middle of a giant shark frenzy where the sharks are eating themselves. There is no regulation that fixes this which is proper since regulations are fair game for the untrustworthy. The lesson here is to buy simple instruments, stocks and bonds and not complex ones such as funds and ETFS, for the long term and just stay out of the casino as much as possible.
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