No, they can not, they utilize multiple statistically correlations and hope they stay accurate. The models are adjusted when the previous coding no longer produces profits. What they do attempt is to rapidly trade larger amounts and hope to capture a penny or even less if that’s available and do so multiple times during the day.
Slap a transaction tax on intra-day trading and watch how fast the volumes on the exchanges shrivel up. No transaction fee if held 3 days, and scale it up to something that hurts if you close the same day. If you are a day trader you get maybe three free per day without the fee.
These machines are DANGEROUS and combined with the ETF’s that allow shorting without an uptick will one day cause an event we don’t want to contemplate. I was a trader at Drexel and the last 90 minutes of the crash of 1987 will NEVER GO AWAY from my memory.
Thanks for that
FReegards