Clearly, both outcomes are suboptimal and inefficient - for retail traders. Both are actually instances of phantom liquidity, where the tape doesn't match the a

Clearly, both outcomes are suboptimal and inefficient - for retail traders. Both are actually instances of phantom liquidity, where the tape doesn't match the actual price that is being executed. One also has to keep in mind that retail traders are often matched with other retail traders in the same brokerage; their orders probably never make it as far as Getco, Citadel, etc NYSE's concept of DMMs is not a bad compromise between the Wild West of full automation and the corrupt 80s fatso that takes a huge spread. Unfortunately, this solution doesn't scale well.