You are very naïve RossB; "rigged" is the correct word.
When the robots see genuine buy orders placed for a stock at 100c and they beat that genuine buyer by a millisecond and then in that same millisecond sell the 100c stock they gazumped to the genuine buyer for 100.5c that is rigging the market.
There is no "slightly rigged" there is only rigged.
The robots are as guilty of rigging or fixing as was the trainer that started a "ring-in" racehorse in a race even if that ring-in is beaten by a nose as Fine Cotton was in Qld from memory.
In other words the robots are guilty simply by their fraudulent and deceitful acts of embezzlement and not necessary by their apparently guaranteed profitable results.
Why do you think the HFTs operate as they do?
It is not to provide liquidity for the ASX which is the most pathetic excuse I have heard for this theft.
