I'm not used to playing fast stocks like MAMA. How are you supposed to trade something like this when it's moving a point per minute? I tried a few market orders, and they just sat there for 10 seconds or so. (Aren't market orders immediate?) Should you just use a limit order with ISLD, assuming there's going to be ample liquidity? I think I must have cheated myself out of $5K not knowing how to get my trade executed efficiently.
Not sure what type of market orders you are using, but if you don't have some sort of smart routing I would use an ARCA market order on that stock.
======================= Toonces MAMA has a catchy name but sounds like there is lots of wisdom in your first sentence. I wish you well; interesting assumption that a micro cap which has spent most of the year, month ,week below $5.oo barrier & this mourning has made a clear topping tail would be liquid on any kind of order. Toonces, the times i made money on fast & highly volatile stocks, did use market orders; however there was more than 1 or 1.5 days of institutional interest and or index related.
You used the words "market orders" as if they were some universal constant. You need to know where those orders are being routed to and with what coding. By coding I mean sometimes market orders are converted to limit or special subcategories of market orders. You need to know what your broker does with your order when you choose "market".
Oh man, market orders. You guys are at a very HUGE dissadvantage if you are trying to play fast stocks without a good order-entry platform. For slow securities, its fine, but when something moves, you can get burned. The slippage becomes too high. I don't know if any of you read my thread in PRO section, please read it: http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=29394 They accept retail or pro - doesnt matter. Besides rates, whats really important is the platform.