questions for the joint parliamentary meeting, page-14

I always used to think that I could only trade shares in marketable parcels and the broker bots could trade in ones and twos ! well it turns out as long as you already own stock in the company you can if fact trade one share ?

I tried to buy one CDU share at 5 cents under the market price just to see if Etrade would accept the order. Turns out they did and I could see my buy order for one share go into seats on the power etrade live iress screen.

Problem is it would have cost me $29 in brokerage to buy one $5 share. This is one of the reasons the bots are so prolific is the is no $$$ cost penalty for them because of the bulk arrangement they have in place with ASX.

The other issue for the retail punter is the " Flash " speed available to the brokers than can jump even the fastest speed available to retail customers of Telstra and optus.

Then of course we have the dark pools, icebergs and sniper programs all designed to create a market that is far from a level playing field.

Bots ! GRRRRRRRRRRR !