Mutual funds and private equity firms benefit.
The whole idea is to hide the supply/demand levels of equities. When one of these firms wants to either dump or buy a large position in a company, they want to do it surreptitiously so as not to move the market to their disadvantage. In other words, they don't like an free open market.
Alex
ÂThere is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.Â
-- Isaac Asimov