"I really grow weary of the one-sided diatribe against HFT by people who don't fully understand what they're talking about, and the subsequent repetition of such views by so many others. My firm is one of the biggest market makers on the CME (among other exchanges) and to be so, we must of course use computerized trading. We engage in nothing remotely close to anti-social practice, yet in columns like John Plender's which was in turn reprinted by Fullermoney, broad generalizations are made which unfortunately lump us together with the miscreants (using the probably true assumption that the miscreants exist).

"Demonizing an entire class of people based upon a narrow stereotype is in fact at the top of my list of anti-social behaviour. We genuinely do provide liquidity, we employ dozens of people, and we give 30% of our net income to charity. Just because we have to use computers in our work and strive to be efficient doesn't make us evil (is there anyone else out there in the world who needs a computer in order to do their job?). Many of the principles (like latency, order float time, and colocation) have facets that aren't presented by you and others and if they were, would introduce a modicum of sense into the debate.

"Should you ever wish to provide your readership with balanced insight in the form of an interview with someone who actually understands HFT, I am at your service. I do mean this in the kindest possible way, because otherwise I respect your work greatly."

David Fuller's view Your main point seems to be that those of us who express concern over high-frequency trading do so because we do not know what we are talking about. This is true in a techie sense. However I do not need to know how to make an atom bomb to know that it is a bad idea. I do not need to know how to write CDOs to know that their complexity and profusion becomes a financial weapon of mass destruction. I do not need to know how to write your algorithms to see that high-frequency trading is front-running, therefore predatory in regard to other investors, and potentially destabilising due to its share of the volume, as I believe the "flash crash" on May 6th demonstrated.

I do not need to know how to read music to know that a great opera, symphony or popular song is a wondrous, inspirational achievement. I can marvel at the technical ingenuity of your successful algorithms but question whether you are contributing to capital formation, which is the main purpose of markets. Lots of successful people create jobs and contribute to charity but my hunch is that if Paul Volcker was answering your email he would ask you to provide "one shred of evidence" that high-frequency trading was socially useful.

I appreciate that you have written to me but you have not addressed the criticisms of high-frequency trading. I do not conduct interviews. However to provide your "balanced insight", I encourage you to write a rebuttal to those who you say have misunderstood and misrepresented high-frequency trading. In particular, please address the concerns expressed by Sal Arnuk and Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading, in their interview with Kathryn Welling: "Playing Fair?" - published on June 11th, 2010. I suggest that you send your rebuttal to the Financial Times and any other important financial press, and I hope you would send it to me because I would post it for the Fullermoney Collective. (Use the Search facility upper-left to see earlier comments on 'high-frequency' trading.)