I have never seen a more uninformed group of traders in my life. All you guys are bitching about quote stuffing and Penny shaving, and none of you even know how it works, or how the dark books work. You guys should do the least amount of research before looking like a bunch of "desperate housewives," looking for a score. I will give someone 1000 bucks if they actually come out here tonight and tell me the way the various dark books print......(this can not include the guys i trade with) Numbers are down amongst most traders, and they are down for a reason, and it isnt because of the HFT guys, it is because the general public is not participating anymore. This scenario has been prophesied in other trading books, when the market gets tough and comes down to pros vs pros, it ends up being a tough market. Period. I suggest most people in this thread go out and look at where the liquidity is going.
There is alot of bad info in this thread, I traded with these dark books for years, and i can assure you that sub pennny quotes are not your issue. I suggest anyone who is worried about them go out and figure out how sub penny quotes work on dark books. Id be willing to bet that not a single person on this thread even understands it. The reason the market is tough is not because of HFT traders, it is because the general public is no longer participating in this market. Yes numbers are down, for us as pro ttraders but it is because the market is now pros vs. pros, as opposed to pros vs pikers. Overall at this point it is all of us competing against each other which is creating a bad market. The days of market sell orders for 30k shares are gone. And it has very little to do with HFT guys.
I have not been around for too long, but was a similar backlash towards specialists when they were handling majority of volume?