Those ECN pennying programs (when they are stepping in front of you) drive me insane. At least when the specialist screws you, he does it quickly so you just get pissed and move on. With the Nasdaq penny machines, you can play blind man's bluff for over an hour and never get a share off. Kind of like ripping a bandade off in one swift motion as oppossed to slowly peeling it off. . . Does anyone know of anyone who engages in that chicanery with Nas stocks and is it even remotely profitable? (not that that information would ever be divulged by someone who is actually doing it successfully)
It's not about chicanery. The buyers are going to be on the inside no matter what you do. Unless you are taking the offer, they will frontrun or match your bid all day. I look for certain games that are played, and take advantage of them where possible, but its too much like work for my taste.
The rumours of NYSE going electronic sound reasonable to me when I just looked at LAB and VDM's stock. Both are at all time lows, while e.g. CME stock is still skyrocketing (All these stocks depend somehow on upcoming mkt turnovers). That might be a good indicator that we might see a electonic NYSE in the foreseeable future. I would greatly welcome such a thing.
Funny that people complain about black boxes pennying them to death on the naz. Hey.... its a free market. Isnt that what we want? You can penny them back. Oh, whats wrong? You're too slow? SO WRITE YOUR OWN BLACK BOX AND STOP CRYING Whats wrong? Are you lazy? Dont have the tech skills? Then tough shit..... your lunch is gonna get EATEN by computerized system traders. Welcome to the future. Adapt or die. peace axeman
You can blame the lack of liquidity on that populist pinhead Arthur Levitt, who destroyed the market-making system by going to pennies, driving out firms who used to commit serious capital to maintaining an orderly market. If you traded in the mid 90's, then you probably remember that Nasdaq stocks had nice flow back then. Some blame the Crash of '87 on the market makers who didn't pick up their phones. Now, there won't be any phones to pick up, which is one big reason why we switched over from stocks to futures, except for some super large-cap exceptions. The lack of trading liquidity in stocks that have average daily volumes of up to 1, even 2 million shares, is astonishing. But at least the rebate and opening order guys can pull down their big-bucks $200 per day.
i haven't had time to read all the posts here, but I see what the complaint is. my question: are they really still playing these games?