Comment by spopejoy

Indeed, institutional traders and asset managers are still the "buy side" and as such are not crazily more informed than retail.

The real sharks are on the sell side, using low-latency arbitrage and massive leverage, and have the ability to unwind risky positions over months. Fleecing buy side and retail is highly profitable for them.

In their defense of course they'll say they're "providing liquidity", and given how much buy side tends to pile up on one side of the trade, you can see their point: somebody's going to take the other side of these big moves.