I was reading an article about how Barclays got fined for manipulating the price of gold for a decade and got me thinking...wouldn't it be better for the average person if people could only trade their own money and only in their name. No more billion dollar hedgefunds buying or dumping huge orders. No investment banks allowed to trade in the public markets, ect. The stock market would be just for individual people, trading individual accounts. This of course would never happen, no matter how good it is for the people, but doesnt it seem more fair to the average joe?
Uhm ... No. Liquidity drying up that fast would take everything down so hard, we might as well just call a do-over and go back to 1903 Myself, I find the markets incredibly fair here in the West. Other people pull bullcrap. That's on them. I do right by me, my trades are executed so much better nowadays ... and thus, my profitability begins and ends with ... Me
You should read some books about traders and how much money they made back in 1903. You might be for it then.
I'm not talking about the money to be made for the individual. I'm talking about the liquidity in the system.
Given how bad most people are at making economic/trading decisions then - no. The reason why mutual funds etc exist is because of collective groups and economies of scale in both cost and time. These days however its cheaper for most not to pay a fund manager and just get an ETF - but here in lies the answer to your question. Most people still dont switch from high fee funds to simple trackers or other such instruments and they still dont switch bank accounts when they should and they still dont do things like pay off expensive debt early and manage the simple financial things in their life. So why would the average joe be better off if they traded their own money? Regards manipulation and large funds - has always been there in some form or another - I view it more as people gaming a system rather than manipulation.
I think what you might want to see is the officers of the various corporations trading in their own names, thereby assuming responsibility without passing it to the corporation they work for.
It would be better for the average person if the SEC and the CFTC and the FBI actively investigated and enforced existing laws in terms of bank and HF activity in the markets.