[guimarin]

to answer 3. I don't want to raise the bid/ask spread. Only that there is a tally of the number of instruments you traded and the number of times. and you pay $.10 for trades*times.

to answer 4. The point of this is to stop companies from making subsidiaries in another country to realize gains, and then wait for a tax holiday for repatriation.

[yummyfajitas]

Regarding 4 (see other's reply to 3), I still don't understand why companies should be required to deliberately lose money in overseas subsidiaries.

Why not just not give out tax holidays, and allow foreign companies owned by US companies to leave profits overseas forever? Granted, this will reduce investment in the US, but we don't care about unintended consequences.

[flourpower]

3 would necessarily raise the bid/ask. If you charge everyone 10 cents to transact, then nobody will act as a market maker at a bid/ask narrower than 20 cents.

[maigret]

And that would be good in two points. People will sell less on short term, because the cost of selling will be higher. So stocks will be held longer, which will diminish volatility even more and improve the situation for small investors. What disadvantage will it have for the 99%? I see none.

[baltcode]

Increasing the bid/ask spread will increase volatility, rather than decrease it. With a low spread, if you think the prices are going to rise tomorrow, a lot of people will buy today, thus smoothing out tomorrows peak.