December 9, 2015
As a retail trader I would like to advocate for the approval of IEX’s application to become an exchange. I see no reason, why an exchange that promotes fair markets and has achieved a technology solution to level the playing field between retail traders and high-frequency trading firms; would not be approved. There is no “speed bump” as claimed by high-frequency trading firms such as Citadel.
It is interesting that the only critics of IEX’s application seem to be high-frequency trading firms themselves or incumbent exchanges that directly benefit from high-frequency trading firms; by selling access to their trading pool and allowing co-location of computing hardware thereby giving high-frequency trading firms the heads up they need to perform latency arbitrage (front running). Latency arbitrage is real problem and is something the SEC should be investigating and enforcing. But as it has sat complacent on the sidelines, IEX has provided retail investors with a sense of hope that their trades could be executed fairly in the market without having millions of dollars in capital to buy a speed advantage.
Thank you for your consideration.
Xavier Stevens