Quote Ask price versus (LastTradeAmount + 0.01)

I have written my own Algo trading program using streamed Market data. If I'm seeing the most recent trade sizes and prices from the Market stream, then why would I need Quotes when I can simply take the last Traded Price/Qty and add 1 cent to it as Buying price?

 

Last traded price 100.00
Qty 50
Your buying price 2.01
Yes, you can do that

 

Look at the current quote - the last is just that and could be stale. You simply may not fill.
In illiquid instrument lasts are frequently stale.

 

One of my concerns is that the quote is not the lowest possible price for a Buy. Maybe it is. I'm still a little green in this area.

 

if there is a way to consume top of book or nbbo or something like that then you get the highest bid and lowest offer. usually store them in a hashmap/table or tree (avl)

 

Actually, yes. Polygon is my data supplier, and I can pull NBBO Quotes.