new, I am done debating this with you. I wish you every success. p.s. One of my dearest friends is descended from a specialist.
You are "finished". "Done" is a term used in cooking when the dish is fully cooked. I too am cooked... Good luck. Some of my best friends even live in Florida. Sorry if I annoyed you, but please think about having orders in above and below. It really will help.
what, limit orders? those are made to be ignored. you have partially redeemed yourself by making me laugh.
Do I hear a weepy violin in the background? This thread has a distinct 'boo-hoo, woe is me' flavor to it. Pennies and specialists are squeezing daytraders. Institutions and ECN's are squeezing brokers. Old ladies are squeezing the charmin. So what? Subtle changes in market structure have a long term effect on what works and what doesn't. Nature has a little game called 'adapt or die,' animals play it every day. Traders have to play too.
The way i look at it is this: no matter how tough markets get, at least none of us are one legged refugees begging for bread in Trashcanistan (not exactly on topic but helps to keep things in perspective)
Hmm. The old 'being mugged is better than being mugged and shot' argument. Let's not also forget, 'at least people are free to mug, shoot, and be mugged!'
Chas, What time frame are you looking at? The specialist armed with pennies is now squeezing daytraders. And given declining daily ranges of the major indices for this year pennies count. If you're trading large size relative to your time frame, you've got real problems esp. if you put in a stop loss order at same time. Just too tempting for the specialist to play games when he can see the order flow and jig you to death. All this is just the evolution of the market. We have to evolve with it. In my futures trading I've gone to higher time periods to filter the noise and in stocks, opening orders are my only plays nowadays. We will never have the edge that the specialist order book provides. We'll have to succeed in spite of him. Or frontrun him.
The intergral part of the NYSE structure is called Priority, Parity and Precedence. You have price protection. That means Chas that your limit orders can't be printed through. Keep on complaining, it helps the rest of focus on making money. What stocks do you trade? I want to be in them too. I trade GS, IBM, MER and DUK. Come on in. The water is not too deep and not too cold. Goldilocks situation in these stocks...just right.
Quote by Newathis "The intergral part of the NYSE structure is called Priority, Parity and Precedence. You have price protection. That means Chas that your limit orders can't be printed through." Sounds like pretty sophisticated understanding for someone who is "newatthis". You wouldn't happen to be a specialist would you New? Hmmm? I ALWAYS use limit orders and on the NYSE 96% of the time they are printed through at least twice. The norm is 3 times. Ususally end up giving back 40% to 110%(loss) of my paper profits. Do yourself a favor. DON'T DAYTRADE THE NYSE. You'll be wasting your time and your money. With NASDAQ your tiny little bit of volume won't effect the price action because it is so diversified, the voume comes from many different sources and is much more difficut to manipulate or back away. If you have 500 shares to unload, the bid is at 20.50, and the volume has been a consistent 10,000 shares per minute(for example) you will be able to sell them for 20.49-20.50. On the NYSE, even though the daily volume has been high, you'll be lucky to get rid of them for 20.15 which is a 1.7% loss. They pick and choose, hold off orders, change the order of execution, etc.. You can see it in the sporadic volume action and the wildly fluctuating spread. It's like playing a shell game, "which walnut shell is the real bid under, place yer bets". The specialist knows but you don't. It's a suckers game and anyone who trys to play over any frame less than 3-4 hours or 4-5% IS one. Don't be a sucker. You'll see what will happen here. A few people will tell it like it is and then three or four posers (posters) with vested interest will come on with mass volume(posts) and the newbie reader will end up thinking "Jee, I don't know" and probably "go with the volume". But like the bids, it's not real. LOL