A few years ago, one of the theories about why the markets were rigged against the small investor was high-speed trading. In a recent article by Annie Massa and Charlotte Chilton of Bloomberg News, the high frequency traders are making less money. In 2009, high frequency trading produced $7.2 billion in revenue, last year it was $1.1 billion. The basis reason is high frequency trading loves choppy markets and the markets have been relatively calm with trading volumes down.

Virtu trades more than 12,000 stocks on 235 markets around the world with relatively few people. It is trying to buy KCG Holdings which has 5 times as many employees. The pure speed trades are squeezed on two sides, by rising cost of infrastructure (computers and microwave towers) and low volatility, which gives you less reward for being the fastest said Eric Pritchett, CEO and head of risk at Boston based Potamus Trading.

Ari Rubenstein co-founder of Global Trading Systems said high frequency traders will move into areas they were not in before to find greater revenues.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, think about High Trading firms, there was a market (and still could be) where the fastest make extra money; the other firms learned to do the same thing and profits fall to while profitable it is not as profitable as it once was. For a dividend paying company to pay dividends in a very competitive markets is good thing and to do it consistently over a long period is a remarkable achievement. Learn and profit from their knowledge.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.