Yea, my bids are out there for sometimes at least that long. The difference is, my bids are an honest offer to buy at the limit price I’m specifying. I’m not painting the tape.
I’d go back to a minimum spread in a hot second if I could also get back to open outcry and real human floor traders, because with a human in the trading loop, there’s some common sense in there that says “Bid of $0.01? Bullcrap. Something’s wrong. Let’s find out what.” I never thought that the pre-decimalization spread was unfair, because I knew someone was making small change by using their money to provide liquidity in that spread.
Trading in inherently chaotic and unpredictable at some points, and taking all the humans out of the loop and inserting computers is about as smart as taking pilots out of the cockpits of airplanes. Sure, the FMS can handle most of the situations most of the time. When the “something else the small minority of the time” happens, I’d like some humans in the loop with some experience and common sense to say “Now let’s not panic here...”
If you're sitting in front of a screen with an internet connection trying to click-trade better than the HFT firms (or any trading firm with a co-located connection), well, good luck.
Remember too that the exchanges are baiting the firms to make trades (even losing trades) because the firm gets a kickback in terms of exchange fees or outright payments for luring trading volume onto that exchange (where the exchange get the lion's share of the fees).