An interesting contradiction appears here. On one hand, this increases market efficiency, or so we're told. On the other, we are also told that if a big pension fund wants to avoid being played like this, they should spend money on their own HFT equipment.
It seems there is only one clear winner here - the IT people making money off developing HFT systems.
Here's the chief executive of Vanguard (one of the largest investment management companies in the world) discussing how HFT has dramatically lowered their trading costs:
It seems there is only one clear winner here - the IT people making money off developing HFT systems.