IEX Chief Strategist Defends HFT

Michael Lewis’ recent book Flash Boys was practically guaranteed to make a splash when the author told reporters that the market is ‘rigged’ because of the role that high-frequency trading (HFT) plays, but it seems that not everyone at IEX, the exchange that Lewis touts as the market’s savior, agrees with him.

“We’re not anti-high-frequency trading; we’re pro-fairness,” said IEX chief strategy officer Ronan Ryan in a recent interview with Hung Tran at ETF.com.

And Ryan isn’t just mincing words, he goes out of his way to talk about how important HFT is for the market. He gives the example of a big...