I agree with what your saying, and frankly while I don't like it, I recognize that it's the case. Before we had computerized trading at tiny fractions of a penny, about the smallest increment in all but penny stocks as about 1/16th of a dollar. Bids and asks were frequently spread by an eighth of a dollar or more. I believe at that time the markets were more honest and less manipulation was going on. A broker friend years ago expressed the same thing, but conceded that if we attempted to go back to such trading, some country would permit it, and most trading would move to that country.
To me the world was a far better place when people made investments purely with the intent that something move up. The idea of investing to bring things down is repulsive to me, and I believe it was largely responsible for bringing down the economy of the world in 2008, but those who bet on the down side made billions.
I cannot remember ever investing in a stock where I wouldn't have been willing to pay pennies more to get unless it was trading for under 50 cents, where pennies become rather meaningful. Today we have markets that are sub penny, and frankly I wish I had bought OWCP when it was, but I've bought others. It's a numbers game, but I believe that as stock mature, they want to be on major exchanges, and sometimes to do it, reverse splits are warranted. Personally while I hate them, if a company increase in value to say ten times what I originally paid, I wouldn't fight such a move to put the stock on a major exchange.
Gary
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