Banter and General Comments, page-4326

Meh, as long as the ASX charges the same price to have co-location to everyone, then it's as level as it ever was (the term "front-running" had a literal interpretation in the days of no-computers - only floor trading). As for calling a mate and telling them your orders, given the amount of compliance coverage and recording that goes on, that is crazy talk - the high speed computers will jump on your order or your mate's anyway. The HFT crowd? They trade as principal, ie market makers - that is, they are in the moving business, not the storage business, so they tend to finish every day with a neutral position (or very small relative to gross trading through the day). It means that whatever they sold during the day, they pretty much bought as well. The people that are persistently long or short are not every-day traders, they hold positions for a long time, like you! In GXY's case, you can see the natural longs in Ausbil, Blackrock and various ETFs that cover lithium stocks. Short holders tend to be hedge funds that presumably have long positions in other things, but don't trade frequently either.

When I'm wrong on stocks, I don't blame conspiracies.