Just think of the poor slob whose broker's flat trading fees are capped out at 1000 or 5000 shares. There were a lot of what appeared to be 9 million share trades. At .01 a share after the first 5K shares, the trading fees for the 9 million shares would only be $89,950. They guy who paid $5 to trade the 200, 500 or even 5000 share lots (all worth a fraction of one cent) would be getting a bargain at those rates.