I wonder if the 0% trading fees at the largest exchanges (china & gox) is contributing to this misleading stability.
wouldn't it be more likely to cause instability greater swing trade gains
Can you explain by what mechanism that could possibly work? My experience and several academic papers would disagree with you.
For example:
http://m.rfs.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/11/3389.shortCompetition among trading platforms has considerably reduced trading fees in stock markets. We show that this evolution is not necessarily beneficial to investors. Although they increase gains from trade when a trade happens, lower trading costs can induce investors to post limit orders with a smaller execution probability. In this case, gains from trade are realized less frequently and investors can be worse off.
In other words, lower fees leads to a full book and thus more stability.