#Bid-Ask

The spread is the cunning contrivance that, in the arena of buyer versus seller, quietly nicks a portion of one’s capital. Disguised as a fee for the gap between bid and ask prices, financial institutions grow fat without a twitch. The more an investor chases profit, the more tears are shed over this transparent fissure. Heralded as a boon for market liquidity, it is in fact the most reliably collected hidden tax. In the end, winners and losers alike clutch not figures but this unseen hemorrhage.