so I ask is it fair that market makers have advantages over the public ??
Practically, I don't think the Nasdaq system could work any other way.
If the public had the ability to short at any time, the volatility you see today would be dwarfed but what what you would see, especially in less liquid stocks. The public would likely get screwed even more, since in general, the "public" doesn't short stocks anyway. So would letting "traders" short stocks at any time, benefit the public, or just those traders?
Level 3 is just more information for which an MM needs to manage his risk. The "public" has access to Level 2. But in reality, 99.9% of people use snap realtime quotes or even 20 minute delayed. Professional traders (and some other information geeks like me) use Level 2. But without this excess info, MM's couldn't survive and make money, and the Nasdaq wouldn't exist. Are you making the case for an exchange-only marketplace?
Risk management tools. The "public" has access to this type of software. But even traders who actually have this built into their Level 2 tradestations don't know how to use it since they are not trained well. Hence, most traders lose money. Perhaps MMs are partly to blame. Or more likely, most traders, shouldn't be...
Gary |
