For those that use the openbook and level II, I have noticed that as volitility picks up a little bit, the aggressive size in the open will continously stepping down on the offer, but on level II, it will show that the specialist have locked the book ("1" on the bid) and the offer is now within the somewhat big spread, I anticipated that the specialist would print the offer since he locks the book and it's in the spread but instead when the book is locked, the offer is still aggressively stepping down. He doesn't print the offer, but it gaps down a couple of price levels. When the specialist locks the book, is he just matching orders? My question is, how do you know or what will it look like when the specialist is going to print the size instead of gapping it down?
If you are watching the price action of the stock closely, you should know when to worry and when not to when the spec shows a "1" on the offer. If you are just trading stocks off a filter that shows size or market shorts only, you'll have a much harder time figuring out if you should hold or cover.
I don't see much difference between an ECN refresher and the spec showing '1' ... All it says IMHO is that he's got some more than '1' But you won't know if that's 5000 or 5,000,000
hmmm...well I observed this just minutes after the open in stocks that has been downgraded and had some institutional size that was aggressively stepping down. It's weird because sometimes the "1" would be on the bid, and on Level II, the New York quote would not move, but in the openbook, the size on the offer would continue to step down. This is regarding to NYS, not ecns.
well steve, in what situations would the specialist likely to print the size all at once? I noticed that when he shows "1" on the offer in level II, but the size on the offer is stagnant, but clearly has more than 1, the next print would be the whole size dumped.
hmmm...well I observed this just minutes after the open in stocks that has been downgraded and had some institutional size that was aggressively stepping down. It's weird because sometimes the "1" would be on the bid, and on Level II, the New York quote would not move, but in the openbook, the size on the offer would continue to step down, then the new york spread would match what's in the openbook. my question is, if the size is aggressively stepping down on the openbook, but the spread doesn't reflect that, is that still legit? I mean, the size is in the spread so he could have just print all that in one shot. At the time of the obervation, there were no incoming bids in the openbook, size was stepping down, but on level II, the spread is stagnant, and it doesn't reflect what's in the openbook. This is regarding to NYS, not ecns.
what u find weird, that there's 1 lot on the bid? thats typical if there are plenty of sellers in line. sometimes tho is just there to freak u out.