Ok. I have a question for folks like @felixsalmon, @matt_levine, @IvanTheK and others on here who tweet or write sometimes about Payment For Order Flow and other aspects of retail equity market structure...
@felixsalmon @matt_levine @IvanTheK So obviously retail traders are, for the most part, getting totally free trades (through platforms like Robinhood et. al.). But in theory, they could be losing out if stuff like Payment For Order Flow is causing them to get subpar executions.
But how big of an issue could this really be? $VIRT is one of the biggest players in the space, and it's market cap is $4.8 billion. Maybe Citadel Securities would be worth like twice that much if it were public? We're obviously not talking about huge cash cow sums here.
So what, at its core, is the really big deal here? Retail traders are getting nominally free trades. And the PFOF players aren't really *that* big, as financial markets go. So what is it about the practice that merits so much conversation and attention?
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