From the report..and where much of the ludicrousness surround HFT exists:
"Between 2:45:13 and 2:45:27, HFTs traded over 27,000 contracts, which accounted for about 49 percent of the total trading volume, while buying only about 200 additional contracts net... "
While buying only 200 additional contracts...HFT algo's pinging the market with orders never placed :D
A) You can't ping the market with "orders never placed." You can place orders which may or may not be filled. In this case, they were filled.
B) They are talking about trade volume, not order volume. Further, "200 additional contracts net". Thus means the HFTs immediately purchased 27,000 contracts and later resold 26,800 of them to someone else. Lastly, your laptop can probably process 27,000 trades in less than one second.
"Between 2:45:13 and 2:45:27, HFTs traded over 27,000 contracts, which accounted for about 49 percent of the total trading volume, while buying only about 200 additional contracts net... "
While buying only 200 additional contracts...HFT algo's pinging the market with orders never placed :D