By Ricky Treadwell Guess the average amount of time that a share is held for on the London Stock Exchange. Two weeks? Two days? Two hours? Two minutes? Nowhere near. It is two seconds, and decreasing. In the time that it takes to blink, a high frequency trader could have made 3,500 trades. This can seem scary to any wannabe investors out there. 'How can we compete against these machines?' People ask. 'What social purpose does this serve?' The latter question, or in this case straight up criticism, can come from trusted and powerful sources such as Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman,...

By Ricky Treadwell Guess the average amount of time that a share is held for on the London Stock Exchange. Two weeks? Two days? Two hours? Two minutes? Nowhere near. It is two seconds, and decreasing. In the time that it takes to blink, a high frequency trader could have made 3,500 trades. This can seem scary to any wannabe investors out there. 'How can we compete against these machines?' People ask. 'What social purpose does this serve?' The latter question, or in this case straight up criticism, can come from trusted and powerful sources such as Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman,...