Do you want to elaborate on which specific changes listed in the article are, in your opinion, beneficial to institutional investors at the expense of retail investors, and how?
> The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services on Friday called for the SEC, along with other regulators, to do more to protect the markets from similar events. read more
> The impetus for change came from the so-called "Reddit rally" of January 2021, in which GameStop Corp (GME.N) and other "meme stocks" popular on social media surged to extreme highs on buying from investors trading heavily through Robinhood (HOOD.O) and other commission-free retail brokerages.
> The intense volatility led to big losses for hedge funds that had bet against the meme stocks.
They don't like that the general populace was able to damage hedge funds, so they're making changes to stop it. I don't really know the changes technically, but the intent is right there.
Payment for order flow isn't actually the problem, large institutions not having, or willing ,to part with the margin collateral was. PFOF is just the gas they put in front to hide the real issue, and it's a real good one because removing it also hurts retail investors, making it unlikely to change much.
In the end, They will likely just put some rules in requiring these apps to more 'carefully educate thier customers on the risk of PFOF', basically continuing to protect the institution while insulting little retail investors as being too stupid for not reading the TOS carefully enough.
You don't have to agree with me, time will tell.
1) Limiting PFOF because it creates possible conflicts of interest.
2) Limiting "gamification" of trading via engagement prompts.
3) Adding sub-penny prices to exchanges to harmonize them with market makers. This is to encourage more orders to be sent to exchanges instead of market makers.
How are any of these things capitulating to institutional investors?
I'm pretty sure that it came from Socrates.