High-Frequency Traders: a blessing in disguise? (IEX Group Case)

In 2014, Michael Lewis published the book Flash Boys exposing the U.S. equity market as rigged because of the uncontrolled technological innovation on financial markets. New forms of very aggressive and often ethically-questionable practices of trading have appeared: one above all, high-frequency trading. This paper aims at analyzing this new form of trading and discussing its impacts on the market quality going through the past and current regulatory frameworks, through the operational strategies created and im-plemented in HFT and through the quality factors essential to reach a real market ex-cellence. The analysis also covers the story of Bradley Katsuyama, the man who is con-sidered today as the first whistle-blower of the debate around high-frequency traders and is today the actual founder of IEX Group which turns out to be an exchange pro-tecting the investors against high-frequency traders.