<i>Whatever the formula to making money in this market it definately revolves around top/bottom picking or fading reversals. </i> If you trade in range the same way as you do in a trend you will definatly end up poorer for the effert. Don't do it. So, when you are dealing with a range, when we get to the bottom of a range, think of taking a long. When we get to the top of it, don't wet your pants and think you are going to miss the next big rally, you wont (and if you do buy a pullback). Look for it to start to fade and go short.
So are Specialist's book supposed to become OPEN now? how will this be accomplished?, yet again another piece of very-fast moving information, which will be hard to care, let alone base your trades upon. is this a bad print?
The NYSE said over one year ago that they would have the book open by last summer. June, I think. Having the book open kind of defeats the purpose of having the specialist. My guess is that it will quickly evolve into being just like level 2 from naz, with the same games that everybody plays. You know what would be nice, being able to trade DDR RAM as a commodity.
Anyone has an idea on how many contracts that unfortunate NQ trader bought by mistake today? What's the volume?
Respectfully, I want to argue that flags do work. I think the misconception is that all flags are supposed to work. Think of what a flag represents; Thrust move and simple retrace. Obviously buying every pullback after a thrust is not going to work but here is something I do in regards to flags. Flags that I take tend to be those where the thrust pushed the stock out of a range or above/below an important moving average and the flag pulls back to the edge of the range these are the ones that perform most effectively. Charts depict human emotion.
***No top tier NYSE trader can get away without a strong tape game*** Hitman times are changing. Making a decision based on tapereading may not be as applicable as it was in the past. Just as Level 2 trading was and trying to figure out what the MM was doing. Who gives a dam if Goldman Sachs is on the bid or offer. Like Goldman Sachs being on the bid or offer is going to make a difference if the stock is going up or down. Look certainly I don't ignore prints and I like anyone else look to see if the prints are eating into the bid and offer but I use it as a very small . However I feel that soon I will probably be throwing this tool away once it becomes no longer useful which may sooner then you think.
From another trader: Apparently a globex clerk typed in 2000 contracts to buy when he was supposed to type in 200 contracts. Originally they thought someone hit the wrong key and bought the book (which the Globex terminal provides as an option). They made the high in the pit 39 but ruled that the globex trades were all valid. The firm - some think it is Cargill but this is unconfirmed took a good $2M + loss.
Well, unless the open book substantially change the way tape work, this is still by far the most important skill to develop on NYSE trading, just ask anyone who trades NYSE exclusively. I have seen people getting in and out of tops and bottoms PRECISELY with this skill, especially in stocks that they trade frequently. People who hate the tape are typically Nasdaq crowd that never got used to the concept. We will see what happens when open book is released, IMHO it will be very insignificant to the way we trade just as decimal was, some people got hit but most won't.
Hitman, Can you recommend a book or information source that deals exclusively with tape reading. I have about 40 trading books covering many different subjects from Jesse Livermore to Arbitrage, but none actually enter the nitty gritty of what you are supposed to do whilst tape reading. Shorteee "Oh by the way in reference to flags I read in a traders magazine a couple of years ago that flags work about 50% of the time." Statistically then, they DON'T work. For something to be more than RANDOM it must work less than 30% or higher than 70% of the time. Now there is a big debate - is there anything in this business that is truly non-random? Are we then just a bunch of gamblers with the ultimate goal to be failure on the roulette wheel of life?!