r/stocks
Shouldn’t public markets have public data?
Author criticizes NYSE's high data fees for creating information asymmetry and hindering retail algo traders using APIs like Robinhood.
- AI has commoditized analytical tools, making affordable data access the new frontier for market competition.
- Public markets require public, real-time data endpoints to ensure true price discovery and market efficiency.
- NYSE's data gatekeeping and massive fees create information asymmetry, breaking market efficiency and increasing volatility.
- Retail traders are locked out of real-time order flow, turning the market into a lottery where entry fees determine odds.
The NYSE is a privately held company that markets itself as the world’s largest public market. Yet it charges $8.4k per month for real-time data access, plus $78 per professional user monthly. You can build algorithmic trading systems through Robinhood or Schwab APIs, but you can’t feed them real-time NYSE order flow because the NYSE owns that data and charges massive fees to access it. A developer trading their own money on their own brokerage still can’t programmatically access the market data they need to compete.
When analysis was the bottleneck, data gatekeeping didn’t matter. Now that frontier AI commoditized analytical tools, controlling data access is the only competitive advantage left. But here’s what really matters: information asymmetry breaks market efficiency. When retail traders and developers can’t access real-time order flow, prices don’t reflect true value and volatility increases. The regulatory battleground isn’t AI tools anymore. It’s data access. Public markets need public, affordable, real-time data endpoints. Otherwise you’re not running price discovery, you’re running a lottery where entry fee determines odds.
If access to this data doesn’t provide an advantage, then why do people and institutions pay for it?
The public data is the legally required SEC filings
I don't understand this confusion that constantly arises, where people think market data is something to which one can be entitled. The New York Stock Exchange exists to let people easily exchange stock at market-driven prices, not to provide a level playing field for head-to-head competitions between algorithmic traders.
we are probably dealing with a lot of college "finance majors" in their sophomore year.
OPs argument about the way things "should" be seems to have just as much merit as yours though. Any opinion on what the legislative landscape should require is always about what you think people are entitled to.
Doesn't really seem like much of an issue. The public markets don't require that to be public and never has.
You do not need real-time data for efficient price discovery.
Always has been
AI slop. Stfu
"But here’s what really matters: "
“Bottom line”
Apple is a publicly traded company, why can't I find Tim Cooks phone number and ask him what iPhone 20 looks like
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) Stock Price, News, Quote & History - Yahoo Finance
The NYSE is explicitly not a privately held company. Its a publicly held company
\> A publicly traded company can still be a private actor
Absolutely, but this is wrong
\>The NYSE is a privately held company
a privately held company is literally defined as
\> A privately held company, or simply private company, is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the company's shares are held and transferred privately and are not traded on public stock exchanges.
Privately held company - Wikipedia
So please, share how the NYSE isn't publicly traded. If you can provide a definition that says a privately held company doesn't trade on an exchange, please do
I don't think the NYSE cares about free markets as much as they care about making money.
OP isn't talking about company financials they are talking about order flow data, which, no, it doesn't make any sense to claim you have a right to that being public.
OP wants the government to force a private company to give out market data for free. Wtf else is he asking about?
Private company is obviously never going to do it otherwise, and they have a monopoly on the data.