great question limitdown!!! i've been asking this one for years. i would love to find some type of "record" of this if it is available.
I have seen the list of stocks traded in each Specialist Post, and I am sure that if you call the NYSe they will send you a copy. It's probably online as well. The posts are run by firms, so you may not get the exact name of the person running it (for obvious reasons)....but you will get an idea of the firm their with anyway. Don
If the spreads are too wide for you in either an ECN or by the Specialist, then you should take advantage of it by trying to earn the spread rather than pay the spread. Too many traders need to pay for liquidity when these days (ex today and friday) it pays to ADD liquidity. Or, be right on direction for more than a few cents. easy right?
yes. easy. i've noticed that when I try to play specialist in the short time frames it gets his dander up and I get pennied.
"My thought is basically if you have conviction about the trade, don't sweat the penny (pennies). Why miss a trade with an unfilled limit order when a market order would have given you the certain fill?" I would like to thank Mr. Bright and rs7 for your comments. rs7 your comments regarding a market order makes sense in the context of the trade I tried to put on last Fri. On a trade that moved as well as that one, a few cents one way or another really was not that important, getting the fill was. But since I am so used to limit orders and only using market in a panic to get out, it may take some time to get used to. It seems like one has to, for want of a better expression, "trust" a market order with the specialist. "By the time our traders learn all the rules" Mr. Bright, are these the arcane rules of NYSE/Specialist alchemy, that need to be translated from ancient Gaelic to Greek to Latin to English and finally to American that I have read about on the ET Boards? Just kidding. It is funny though, how every time that I mention to some of my OTC brethren that I am thinking about trading listed issues, they react with horror, disbelief and even disdain. And they tell me how I will be skinned, rolled in a bag of salt and then washed off with vinegar by the specialist before I even get a chance to make a penny. But starting with the QQQ's, I will endeavor to persevere. By the way chas, did you flush that pig out of some palmetto scrub with your dogs, or is it a pet? xstek
i flushed him out of the web. it's what we florida boys do. why miss a trade with a limit? because sometimes the limit is your edge. nothing like paying up for a fakeout. i don't give a hog's snout about pennies, except to the extent that they stand between me and my fill.
tharp, too bad you're ignoring me. that's a home run. at least they're spending all that money we give 'em on cool stuff. (i love that thing. i wonder if i can make money with it, tho).
thanks for the post but the firm doesn't really help me. if i know the specialist for stock "X" like the back of my hand and he trades stock "Z" also, then i would feel more comfortable adding "Z" to my group. if i hate a particular specialist and can find out "his" other stocks then i can avoid them like the plague!!!!!!!!!!