He does have the ability to match orders with ISLD, but there has to be a matching order on the ISLD book. If the ISLD book looked like this: 9.99 ISLD 10 10.00 ISLD 10 then he would get an instant fill for his buy order. In his case the book looks something like this: 10.00 ISLD 10 10.01 ISLD 10 and he is sending a limit order to buy 1000 shares at 10.001. Since his limit price is less than the inside offer he gets no instant fill and gets added to the book, becoming the inside bid, so that it now looks like this: 10.001 ISLD 10 10.01 ISLD 10 10.00 ISLD 10 Newest, Do you have level II? Can you tell who is getting hit while you sit there? I'll agree with sammybea that ISLD is probably the best place to post a resting limit order for a fast fill.
I sat on a market sell for over half a minute through smart today and no fill(twice). If I recall correctly, also tried it through NYSE and the same results. Why should you have to sit on an open market order that long. Called IB and they said NYSE had received the orders, but NYSE did not fill. And that NYSE will not talk to IB if the order is cancelled. Well golly gee whiz, what do they expect. The stock was moving too fast and went through my entry point so I had to cancel. Seems to me the policy of not talking, is not business like and professional, and is merely used to avoid taking responsibility for lousy fills. What causes this? I am sure the specialist has no ulterior motive on a small 300 share order. So why does this happen? My concern is getting filled at a price way outside the inside, if the order sits there too long. I have not experienced these types of delays on Xoomtrade on NYSE with a 15 second time limit. So is IB slow, or the specialist slow, or was this an unusual situation? Exasperated!
Quote from kowboy: I sat on a market sell for over half a minute through smart today and no fill(twice). If I recall correctly, also tried it through NYSE and the same results. Why should you have to sit on an open market order that long. ... Depending on the stock and exactly what's going on, NYSE and AMEX orders can sit for what seems like an eternity. If a stock is in play, there can be lots of "stock ahead" of you (orders that came in earlier) waiting to be filled while the spec is trying to arrange the trades with the crowd and the book. 30 seconds is not what I'd call unusual for a lot of NYSE stocks. Illiquid AMEX stocks (e.g. oil s&e stocks) are even worse, even when you're willing to pay the quote. I often find out that he was indeed waiting to match me up with another real order and I get price improvement, though. If the stock is printing occasionally and the quote is changing, I'd call while the order is still live if it doesn't fill within about 60 seconds. If it appears to be frozen, and you're sure you're still connected , you might wait a little longer (like 2 minutes, or until the next print) before calling.
That's NASDAQ for you. A free for all market. A perfect market. Their are several reasons for your above but most likely market makers were filling orders at the NBBO or there was hidden a reserve order on some other ECN. Maybe next time bid 10.01 instead.