In recent weeks, high-frequency trading (HFT) skeptics have turned their febrile imaginations to the issue of "excessively high" order cancellation rates, suggesting they constitute “evidence” of gaming or manipulation on the part of HFTs, or “proof” that the liquidity these strategies provide is of inferior quality. The fact that the detractors never specify a rate of cancellations they'd deem satisfactory, nor any material criteria for determining such a threshold, belies the fact that cancellation rates are, in fact, a false issue.