Quote from Jerkstore:
I completely agree. They should also eliminate flash quotes, dark pools, co-location, payment for order flow, and liquidity rebates...
Except for flash quotes and a cursury glance at dark pools, none of this will happen though. The congress people have probably never heard of payment for order flow. The only reason flash quotes ever hit the radar of congress is because some very powerful institutions, like NYSE, were starting to lose market share to the newer, more technically advanced exchanges. If the special interest people don't make it known to congress, congress definitely doesn't know about it.
And here is where I think people don't get it...
OTC stuff on exchanges? Good idea! I know I have worked on OTC stuff and seen the volumes there.
Dark pools? Why not! What is to stop me from going to an individual and saying, "hey you know those 10 gazilion shares of company X, how about we make a deal."
That is what dark pools are all about. A place where very large blocks can be bought or sold. Otherwise these blocks are chopped, bought and sold using high frequency trading.
co-location? Why not? Are you going to institute a minimum distance from the exchange? After all co-location is saying the radius is zero. Without co-location, what about the building beside the exchange? Too close? Too far?
liquidity rebates? Why not? If I am going to send a large block of shares on the market then I will move the market. If an exchange will give me a rebate due to my market moving event I am all for it. Otherwise I will look elsewhere...
flash quotes? Again what is the problem? Remember the days of the pit trader? Remember the wink, wink, hint, hint, Bob is my name that went on between the individual people in the pit? Don't you think that the pit traders put certain people on certain priorities? Do you really think it was fair?
All of these things are just evolution of an electronic world. We just have to get used to it. Thus that is why I refuse to scalp shares or try to do any day trading. It has been statistically proven that day trading these days is noise trading. The machines have taken over and unless you have a machine forget it...