FCA Paper Calls Latency Arbitrage ‘Tax’ on Non-HFT Traders

In a further signal that regulators may seek to address what they see as information and process asymmetries within HFT firms’ trading strategies, the UK’s FCA last month published a research paper claiming that latency arbitrage results in a global “tax” on non-HFT investors in equity markets. The paper says HFT firms’ use of faster information access and more efficient processes to complete trades gives them a speed advantage over other players, and suggests that eliminating latency arbitrage would result in a 17% reduction in trading costs.