Fair compared to how an efficient, liquid market should trade without hinderance from a profit motivated party regulated by it peers who are in the same boat. You can even say fair compared to how the exchange is suppose to trade according to the spirit and intent of their own rules. Yes life is full of unfair acts but that does not mean one should not strive to improve things. Look at the history of the exchanges, insider trading, access to the exchanges, etc. If no effort was made to set right obvious conflicts and unfair practices in the markets I am afraid you would probably have never had the chance to trade successfully. Since you brought up Nasdaq, look at their history. They were busted for collusion, definitely an unfair trading practice. I am sure there were many traders at the time that were making money from those trading conditions with artifical wide spreads. It would seem to be hard to argue that it was fair and optimal market structure just because a few traders knew how to trade with that current market system. Should we have just left Nasdaq alone too because there is no such thing as fair. They had been trading that way for many years too. I see the NYSE right now as the same thing. I know it will probably be hard to see my point though because you are looking at it through the eyes of someone who allegedly knows how to trade the current system successful, so I am guessing part of your opinion is based on a fear of a changing system and wondering if you would be able to adapt to new market structure. I have been there too when I traded nasdaq stocks and the system changed from selectnet to supersoes. If you knew how to route orders and use the "unfair" and inefficient selectnet order system you could really clean up. It was difficult to face the changing of the status quo at the time.
Yet another opaque situation... Wrist slap for most..no one gives crap about this stuff at Dow 10,100, who really cares at this point? SS GS just in case, probably get reamed anyway. Best, David
Naz is the alternative and it is not very respectable. NYSE has their shady practices but there are many safety nets and advantages that they offer to everyone (except the masses of course). You fail to recognize that the proposed system which is Naz is actually a failure considering their super ideal hypothetical model that they claimed. The whole COCO thing is just funny. You cannot compare the blatant abuses of Naz to the NYSE & Gang system. Naz's criminal days consisted of MMs basically spending all day and every day of ripping off whoever they could. The specialist system is about inventory control and at the core of it is what any primary inventory trader would do. At the same time, the specialist will provide many advantages and support to the stock, actions that no MM will ever take. Yeah they make a killing by doing it, but there are quite a few benefits to their system. Institutionals and huge retail clients see those a lot more (and sometimes they take a screwing or two) but still. Yes, NYSE could make improvements in this endless search for fantasy world where everyone makes money. But I do not want another Nazdaq. BTW regarding this statement "Fair compared to how an efficient, liquid market should trade without hinderance from a profit motivated party regulated by it peers who are in the same boat." It's all about making money, man. In the hypothetical efficient market, traders do not exist. And noone truly makes anything. Is that what you are aiming for?
================== Calpers lawyers probably cant prove thier charge of mr Grasso's pay of being ''obscene''; when one compares it to lawyer 's pay. More interesting is the admitted suspectability of calpers to illegal stock manipulation by the 7 named specialist firms; & thier written comparison to ''rapid fire smaller traders engaged in day trading or hyperactive trading'' Quotes from above link & calpers lawyers
and correct me if im wrong, but isnt the treasurer who is spearheading this lawsuit RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA next election? it never stops, the band plays on gotta love capitalism
Well I don't necessarily think Naz is the only alternative. There are a lot of things that can be done to improve NYSE without turning into another nasdaq. I have not seen or heard anyone propose to exactly replicate nasdaq for the NYSE. Besides the logisitcs and support for doing that does not seem to be there. Well I can compare specialist activities to MM. Not every MM acted criminally just like not every specialist is a bad apple either. However I think abuses occur everyday just like MM did. Frontrunning orders, freezing the book so trades can not be made, keeping the spread artifically wide etc. Actually a lot of those abuses sound like what the MM used to do by not answering selectnet orders and colluding to keep the spread wide. Maybe marketmakers no longer make much of a market anymore, but they used to be all about inventory control too. Remember all the talk about the AXE in a stock (which still occurs at times) who basically controlled the stocks kind of like a specialist but with less information. They will support a stocks just like a specialist will when an order imbalance comes in because of news and he gaps it down a pt or 2. About the efficient market I think futures would be considered an efficient and wide open trading market without much interference. There are plenty of people who make money in that environment. Making money on NYSE was not really what I was getting at when I first posted. I was commenting on how someone will say that the NYSE is best in it present form just because they learned how to make money on a seemingly obvious corrupt and bias trading system. Traders that adapt will be able to make money regardless of the market structure or market environment. My point was that standard by which rules, regulation, and markets should be judged should not be based on whether you can currently make money with it. What happens if you suddenly can't make money anymore because continued abuses escalate or for whatever other reason. Would that change your mind at all about whether a market structure should be setup where one person can see all the orders, penny a large buyers limit order because he knows he has something to lean on, fail to match natural buyers and sellers because he can profit from it by including himself, or a host of other conflicts of interest?
Yes, great post, downtick. I don't totally disagree with Mecro, and do understand his stance. However, talking about others not having a clue, is truly ignorant. Of course we have a clue - we do the same thing for a living that you do. Eyes wide open. Downtick is correct - if you were unable to make money with the current system, you would be all over the system like flypaper. The system has tremendous room for improvement. The Naz, although not close to being perfect, has cleaned up its act considerably. We need a happy medium.