Sniper_Trader1 Actually, this quote belongs to Rogan LaBier. It was originally posted word for word on his tools-of-the-trade website. You force me to reply- the "original quote" is from Ken Calhoun's Trading the Open chat room as stated by him and printed by him on Oct 23,2000 at 1:37:23 EST. If Rogan Labier has the same quote, after this date, then he borrowed it from Ken.
I hate to be involved in such a trivial argument, but just for the record LaBier's "Tools of the Trade" was published on the web way before Oct 2000. I don't know the exact date, but I downloaded it in either late 1999 or early 2000. I don't know if that quote is in there, and quite honestly I don't care enough to look, but if it is in Tools of the Trade, it was way before Calhoun's discussion.
The quote is borrowed from Rogan's E-book published in 1999. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=655 Rogan used to be a market maker, and this was his exact description of what happens with a selectnet order. FWIW, I guarantee you Ken has never seen a Level III screen. You can ask him yourself
Zboy, I respect your opinion very much, and I know that many of you feel that way. However, from a risk management point of view, I feel that if I trade 300+ shares on average per transaction, MBT is the way to go. I average 700 shares per order, so my commission difference is 1 cent. I strongly beleieve that I save more than a penny on average by using MBT. And I am comfortable that if my network goes down, there would be someone to get me out of the trade.
Not in my trading experience. You can lose a ton on VRTS and CIEN in one-sided markets. There will be no ECN in sight! I have paid up 50-80 cents many times to cover a short on VRTS and CIEN taking out best ECN offers. Remember we are talking about FAST MOVING MARKETS ... Bill
I trade VRTS every day and even in fast markets (e.g. last friday afternoon) there's practically always an ECN available within the first five levels. Of course that may be 50 cents or more away. But if you're caught leaning the wrong way in such a situation it's often better to bite the bullet instead of preferencing some MM closer to the inside and ending up with a 100 share partial fill.