Certainly HFT (high frequency trading) takes advantage of minute price discrepancies and can fire off trades faster than your head can spin but is it "rigged"? Is it illegal? Clearly big funds have an advantage over Joe the Plumber trying to trade his own portfolio. They, after all, can afford all the bells and whistles, the fancy (more expensive) indicators, gain insider insight and if nothing else, insider information however can you say that's illegal or "rigged"? Maybe it's more their presence causes concerns over stock market integrity with flash crashes occurring (it seems) on a continual basis now.
We here at StockBuz strive to trade our ports, whether dollar cost averaging or full trades and do a darn good job at it so collaboration works. Whether members feel "rigged" is the proper term to use is anyone's guess but right or wrong..............it certainly sells books.
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Now the FBI has announced an investigation into HFT; specifically quote stuffing where orders are placed and pulled; thus holding a stock in place and then pulling so the market plows over those who just bought or sold. That'll be interesting because I see it done all of the time and you can see the volume spike as people frenzy to buy/sell what they just got into.