Are you with a firm that is teaching you to try and fade size? If so, what firm is it? Personally- I know of a group that is going to continue to do that to you. WLT was a very profitable trade for them.
i've heard of groups doing this on thinner stocks. i guess its no surprise that some of the more interesting things that happen to me fit that profile. But is it unprofitable still with the slippage? i think not. but its definitely annoying and makes scaling up tricky. the groups i've heard of are doing it in thinner stocks, but unlike wlt, not stocks moving in a 7 pt range......lol. i'm sure anything that goes up 7 straight points (o, u know, along with the market in general today) its possible to be profitable.
wait...i just realized how stupid this post was. holy crap you actually believe this is physically possible? why do i even get on this site? do you even know what kind of splits specialists get? have you even been in 10,000 shares of something over $1 before? fuck why do idiots get me so irritated sometimes? why am i asking so many questions i know the answers to?
I have no idea what a specialist splt would be. You guys have absolutely no imaginations. The IBM trade was an EXAMPLE jackasses. The OP was trading fairly thin stocks, and the specialist firms are computerized now, and do pull bids and offers like they do in futures.
just to clarify, stocks that do 2-6 million shares on the day are not what I would consider thin. While I wouldn't have just called you out like that, I think rob was irritated by the fact that your example doesn't reflect the liquidity of the stock. (i was obviously just having a little fun when I said, "maybe the IBM of the future trades like fslr" after you gave your example). If you traded those names today, or if you scalp stocks everyday, you don't need much of an imagination to give a good example of how a fake bid/offer would effect a stock, and clearly, 50 cents is not the number he was looking for. but uh, thinking about all this has been good for me, so thanks to everyone.
ok well i've traded with former nyse specialists and they don't trade like that especially nowadays. further, a specialist's primary job is to PROVIDE liquidity not to manipulate quotes. i know the retail trader would be surprised but they don't actually give a shit about the retail traders. the main thing they care about is large institutional order flow that will likely be driving a stock...not someone on etrade bidding 1000 shares. also, if you are seeing bids and offers getting pulled and moved around it is extremely unlikely that it is the specialist. there are a ton of market making programs that are out there now. further, they don't move so fast that you can't hit bids or offers if you cross the stock up or down. if there are 10k shares displayed on the open book within a nickel of lvl1 and i cross it 7 cents to the specialist then i will get those shares. and finally, there simply aren't that many trades that go off in the example you mentioned. i watch for those trades all day and they aren't as prevalent now as they were when hybrid first started. back then LRPs used to get hit pretty often...now not so much. just take the perspective that order flow is not a conspiracy and you will be better off.
I've been seeing lots of size scams lately. When they print more volume than is showing on big bid or offer within a few five minutes bars most likely the block will go with or without the daytrader. Tick yourself out when it prints too much too close, lower your win rate, lower your slippage. Reading how the stock reacts to the order and adjusting risk accordingly will maintain long term positive expectancy.
Interesting how you think these participants pulling the cancel size scam are specialists. Not saying you're wrong but what advantages do the specialists firms have that allow them to pull the scam off better than hedgefunds, extremely well capitalized traders, market makers, etc?