The point about MM's manipulating the stock price and making personal profit, however, just doesn't wash. Those are not PEOPLE at computer screens studying each stock and trying to decide to short it or otherwise manipulate the price, they are computer algorithms that do the trading automatically. If it were manual, it would take forever.
Nite, just today, for example:
VIRTU Americas LLC NITE
Dollar volume: 125,992,982
Shares: 3,088,109,217
Trades: 29359
Almost 30 thousand trades of over 3 billion shares worth 125 million dollars. Think there are thousands of stock jockies sitting at desks making those trades?
The whole idea is preposterous, MM's don't even SEE individual trades. But I get it, traders, especially those that get burned by their trading style feel the need to blame someone. They often blame the CEO, blame other shareholder for 'flipping' the stock, but most of all blame MM's, who are virtually NEVER the problem. But the myths live on...