I remember a couple of decades ago people could pay as much as 5% for a stock trade. For example, if you bought a stock at $50 per share, the commission would be $2.50 per share. It would then be another 5% to sell.
Then everybody figured out that that only benefits brokers, and created a huge incentive to churn. When people further realized that your broker may not know much more than you about the prospects of a company, they started to sell you on real advice, not simply because the commission was high but there are still places that'll charge a rather large fee for transactions in mutual funds. Most investors know to stay away from those, but there are a few that still make that mistake. No matter what a broker may tell you about the prospects of a fund, there's still no sex in the champagne room. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/j9yBPcn8IqU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Institutions in large part still pay high rates. Instead of relying on their own reasearch to make investment decisions, they pay firms that give them research to execute their orders (Soft Dollar). This way, if they use several firms, if anything goes awry they have people to blame. It's called "Being wrong with company rather than being right on your own!"
I look at it this way , you pay a doctor for his knowledge about your ailments , you should be able to pay for good sound advise about stock market as well . Either that or we'd have a bunch of uninformed investing their own money and we see how that goes with most of day traders out there.
profits down 40 -50 per cent. volumes down only 10 per cent. let me educate you guys. hft rebates mean no fee income for the exchnage. hence the above anomally. wait till their losing and the volume is only down 20% hft does not create any new volume it kills it. loads of bullshit liquidity but its all an illusion.
I would much rather see a world where stocks trade on earnings and innovations , rather than inflated volumes from so called traders . I also would like the 'modern world" to contain a market where price moves are indicative of the old supply and demand theory . Technology is a positive , when USED positively
The HFT world is no different than the SOES Bandits of another era. They're gamblers, not investors and the NYSE is rewarding them with the rebates.
No doubt. Go private, bring back a spread, raise listing standards and have exclusive trading rights ie no ecns/third mkts trading in the names listed and they have a shot. Hell id go back to individual names if they had a spread in a heart beat. 1/8 min... But clearly that wont ever happen....so...