No Surprise Russia Was Interested In "Destructive" Capability Of HFT

After being accused of hacking a stock exchange and major banks, using high frequency trading as a weapon didn’t come as a surprise to industry professionals

Sometimes the assumptions made in an industry are so far ahead of the news. Take the report of Russia considering using High Frequency Trading (HFT) as a weapon of mass financial destruction, for instance. To those close to the industry it wasn’t much of a surprise.

When Federal Prosecutors in New York filed charges against three Russian spies yesterday, there was a little phone conversation that revealed Russia’s interest in the destructive potential of HFT in regards to the potential to not just disrupt, but destroy the...