there is no logical reason to limit yourself to one exchange or the other, unless you are some kind of highly specialized scalper, like you only scalp IBM all day long. And if you are doing that particular example, then you are competing directly with the floor traders who aren't paying any commissions and who can see order flow coming in. I think a lot of this listed vs. nasdaq bias is coming out of the firms. Some firms are setup to do one or the other, and they are biased in favor of the one they are setup for. Some prop firms are completely setup for adding liquidity to ECN's for example, obviously they will tell you that NYSE sucks. If a firm goes through all the trouble and expense to become self clearing on the NYSE, obviously they will want their traders to use that capability.
You're absolutely right. There is no "logical" reason to trade only one. It's just what I want to do. I'm full-time retail at home, not prop, so what firms think or say has nothing to do with me moving to NYSE. I just noticed, after looking at patterns day after day after day on both Naz and NYSE, that listed patterns seem to move more reliably for my style of trading than Naz patterns did. That's the only real reason I moved. The key there is "for my style of trading." It's not the same for everyone or every style. If the NYSE went away tomorrow, I would have no trouble moving back. But I like it there. -- Dave
I think you are absolutely right. I was just wondering if there was a correlation between being a great scalper(or swing trader) on the nasdaq and being a great scalper(or swing trader) on listed. I am not sure if i really got a concrete answer or if there really is a concrete answer.
This is simply untrue. NYSE offers tremendous opportunity, especially on some of the low volume stock. But you have to tailor your game to the market. You can't trade NYSE like Naz or vice versa. If you prefer Naz, fine... but saying the specialist system sucks is just kind of petty.