> How does an HFT, in practice, add liquidity to a market? Bid/ask spreads u... | Hacker News

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		harryh on April 26, 2012 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: A High Frequency Trader's Apology, Pt 2 > How does an HFT, in practice, add liquidity to a market? Bid/ask spreads used to be 10 cents or more. Now they're generally a penny. That is evidence of a more liquid market. In practice, this is because computers are now market makers instead of humans so they can do this job at a lower cost.

mcphilip on April 26, 2012 | [–]

Is there evidence that the bid ask spreads have that substantially declined across the board, or is the decline limited to the most actively churned stocks?

tazzy531 on April 26, 2012 | [–]

Even fractions of a penny in some cases.

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