On the other hand, day traders provide valuable liquidity to the markets, making them more efficient and better for everyone. They ability to operate would be severely harmed with even a 1% fee on every trade. And more fees also harm normal people like me, who conduct trades that generally last from a few days to a few weeks each. For the most part, we're not harming other people, and we make the markets more efficient and legitimate.
The weird market effects are enabled by what is basically corruption by large entities involved with the markets, and by the ineffectiveness of the SEC at fighting a wide range of anticompetitive practices. They are caused by people who are making a small amount on every trade, but not all of the people making a small amount on every trade are bad.
Unfortunately, this exchange doesn't seem to be aimed at that:
> The LTSE is a bid to build a stock exchange... that appeals to hot startups, particularly those that are money-losing...
> ... giving retail investors a chance to cash in on high-growth startups.
That sounds like a private lottery at best, and a scam at worst. Maybe it wouldn't seem so bad if I read through the full SEC document, but I'll steer clear of this until plenty of other people have tried it out.
I am not sure you've done the math on this when it comes to your basic person socking away $5000/year in index funds in a simple Roth IRA trying to save for retirement, and what signal it sends towards saving money / planning for the future, which is already at its lowest point in this country.