I may be hallucinating this, but I recall reading an advert on NASDAQ's own site touting a service that allows one to see NASDAQ hidden liquidity if you subscribe to a very specific data service offered only by NASDAQ itself. The service (if it exists at all) doesn't show the INDIVIDUAL orders, but it does show the TOTAL SIZE of hidden orders at each price level on the book, effectively allowing the behavior the OP observed. Anyone else hear of this or remember what it's called if it exists (or ever existed, for that matter)?
When I was at their site a few years ago - they were launching a data product that gives statistics on Reserve sizes. But it was historical data & without actual time/MMID so you couldn't track which MMs were reserving - just how the average reserving works to gauge the "true" depth of market. maybe they sell statistics on historical hidden?
Years back we had island FYI and saw who hit or took your order. They did away with it, size ecn then came and you could see who hit you or took you on the contra page they did away with that also. I doubt they bring it back but you never know
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/content/technicalSupport/specifications/dataproducts/modelviewspec.pdf Yep, I guess it is only historical. So it remains to be seen what the OP was witnessing, if anything.
EXACTLY!! once every few months there is a consiperacy going around that someone can see hidden islands. Certainly the data exists - the question is if it is a rouge feed. Probably not, chances of that are tiny: naz is a public company - they won't risk a breach - but who knows. Also - maybe its a modeling system that "predicts" where you are, and when its dead on - looks like it "knows" where you are. Another thing to consider is this: besides the L2, there is also the tape. If they see an execution going off on inet and there is no inet there - guess what - could be hidden. This may not be the specific case of the original thread - but for others who are reading this. Of course - if you go through some "smart routers" some mentioned before, the internal servers of your broker may aggrigate their data on your orders and "see where you are" legality of it is grey -depending how and what they do with the data, but in theory very possible. Some "bad" b/ds and prop shops (there've been a few and still are) shadow their traders' trades. Sometimes trade against. anyway. thanks for the link Euler. good luck to all.
Couldn't resist!!! We had an ongoing joke about this many many years ago, that only the Pope can see hidden islands: ONLY THE POPE CAN SEE HIDDEN ISLANDS
If something like the OP was saying was true that would be kept quiet and the person who put it out there on a public chat site would be blackball from the business or floating somewhere."loose lips sink ships"
I thought that there was probably a non-conspiracy theory explanation for this phenomenon which might be explained by more seasoned traders. I suppose that others who have discovered the algorithm would not share it. Now that Iâve figured it out, Iâm going to make a fortune! Of course, Iâm going to keep it quiet per tradeproâs advice.
What is surprising is Nasdaq's cash grab. They have cut their rebate in half for hidden orders. When i called Nasdaq OMX they said others were complaining that hidden orders shouldn't get full rebates. Yeah Right..! I told them I would just move all my business to Arca or Edge, where i can get full rebates for hidden orders. The person from OMX then contacted my broker and complained that I was stirring up trouble. I hope they lose market share and are forced to change back