Go to market......filled......end of story. Go cry me a river. Oh wait, I forgot, your margins are a fraction of a penny so if some HFT shaves off a fifth of copper, your businesses is rendered useless. Nice dude. I think regulations are the least of your worries. I'm more worried about you cutting your ear off.
If you are making money with a strategy and it does not work anymore ("because" of some new regulations or whatever), then trade with a different strategy, Bob. Don't just sit there and think about the "good old time". Adapt or die, that's what trading is all about.
Leaving the arena is also part of the adapting tool box, many NY traders have done so, so has many ET'ers.
Grandluxe : why not try forex and see for yourself if all the traders have left. I assure you forex is large, and you won't have issues about liquidity and other type of shanaginism. There you are playing with Central Banks, governments, and multi-nationales transacting exchanges. Obviously, forex might show you where the real problem is...
+1. You should always have a backup as you need to be prepared when what you're doing stops working. When you have just one great idea, that means you're in trouble.
if you can't trade with penny spreads you can't trade. if .005 commissions is too much for you show me you have enough talent and volume and i will get you .0005. maybe you are nostalgic for the former soviet union where people were poor but there was such a thing as "real" friendship. where do I send the $10 to pay your arca fee?
while I sit here and watch the emini stock index markets chop & drift in tiny ranges, I have a question for all. Why in your opinions is volume and individual traders' participation at all-time historical lows right now, including the entire electronic markets era? Why are so many traders done & gone now? Why didn't they wash out in 2007 - 2009? Who here is making more money now than any time in the past, particularly more today than 2000 - 2002 or 2007 - 2008 eras? Who here would encourage their own children or other family members who are brand newbies with zero market experience to begin trading right now, today?
I think you are missing Bob111's point. The "penny spreads" are an illusion. He is trying to take those penny offers but they are being pulled before he can get filled if he is on the right side of the trade. However he gets complete fills when he is on the wrong side.
So the whole world knows that the right trade is to buy, but no one does so and when he decides to everyone pulls their offers? And one penny higher, it's the wrong price to buy at.