You're damn right! I see other markets in others countries with a LOT less manipulation & thievery yet their bid/ask spread is a little wider at the open, but so what? These leeches just here just screw with you all fu^&ing day! That's why I've reduced my volume by 80% in the last year here. Screw this shit.
While I disagree with your opinion, I should admit that you know what you are talking about I will just repeat my point, even if your are right that HF guys a picking pennies in front of the steam roller of the mutual funds, mutual funds do benefit from it at the end of the day. Now, they pay a penny to a HF box, that used to pay 1/16 of a dollar to the nyse specialist.
Another BS thread. Let's blame market makers. specialists, the Hybrid, program trading, algos, institutions, manipulators, decimalization, HFT, flashes, and on and on and on... Since most here were in diapers when the '87 Crash came, you don't remember the blame game played over that one. These things never change - people who can't trade, whether through lack of experince, lack of brains, lack of discipline, no solid methodolgy, no risk control or some combination of all, will always be looking for somone else to blame rather than take responsiblilty for their actions. And since I doubt anyone here works for houses like GS, speculating as to what they may or may not do is an utter waste of time...much like almost every second I allow myself to get sucked into reading something on ET.
Maybe if you understood how these these scammers are manipulating the market, you'd criticise less. Unless it's convenient for you to tell others everything's peachy.
LOL! You don't know- this is just guesswork on your part as you have no way to back any of this up. You don't work for GS or any of the rest, you simply see something and come up with one, unprovable explaination that suits you out of a host of possibilites. My guess is that like so many here, you don't even trade.