Liffe in Futures: High-Frequency Trading Here to Stay

After the near–1,000-point drop of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) on May 6, a collapse that transpired over a mere 20 minutes, inside gossip had some traders and media pointing their fingers at the futures market—and more specifically, at a high-frequency trade in futures.

There is no evidence to prove the accusation, but it was enough to lead Scott O’Malia, commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to state publicly that the regulatory body was lost as to how