What exactly are the trading computers doing? Well, they are doing just that, trading. They are completely cold and unemotional. They will not buy an asset because they are "rooting" for it or sell because they simply don't like the management. They will only trade according to strict and clearly defined parameters, and they can process tens of thousands of these parameters per second. This is not quite the same as high-frequency trading, although AI can be (and is) employed in this area too.
