This thread is a little ridiculous. Was this your first day trading? First there is no market maker on an NYSE stock. Market makers are for Nasdaq. There may have been a specialist, but the issue was probably not caused by a market maker. A day order is cancelled at the close. There are many reasons why the stock may have closed lower. I dont particularly like Ameritrade as a broker, but I hardly think there was a conspiracy against your order.
BigEgoDude, My point has to do with those big lot trades which often occur at the close, which anyway seem a bit fishy, seems even more fishy if they are able to ignore the other bids. (Note: More precisely the specialist is the market maker.)
Even a better example: See what happened with WHI yesterday. The stock was trading at $1.13 and $1.14 for a long time, andfinally broke thru to $1.14 & 1.15 by the close. But "somehow" the stock closed at $1.22--I can't even see a corresponding trade on the chart!! Of course, after hours, the bid & ask reverted back to the $1.14 range. Here, there is no room for alternative explanations about what happened.
Those aren't fishy, those are the closing prints, which you yourself can be included on if you submit before 3:59:50 a market-on-close or limit-on-close order.
For granted that can happen--but after seeing what happened with WHI, I also believe there are "other things" that happen as well.
Code: ... ... 15:59:59 1.19 x 1.20 272 x 91 16:03:01 1.19 x 1.20 272 x 91 C/C 16:05:42 20s1.19 @ 16:05:42 1.19 x 1.20 252 x 91 C/C 16:44:17 1.19 x 1.20 1 x 1 C/C 16:45:53 1.19 x 1.20 1 x 1 C/C It appeared that there were no buy MOC orders, so the specialist executed sell 2000 against the bid @1.19
After further review, you're right, this was not an example of the syndrom I was trying to show. However, yesterday's close with WHI definitely was.
Here is the tape for yesterday's close: Code: ... 15:59:54 1.14 x 1.15 958 x 95 16:00:00 1.14 x 1.15 977 x 95 16:03:03 1.14 x 1.15 977 x 95 C/C 16:04:42 60s1.22 @ 16:04:42 1.14 x 1.23 977 x 10 C/C 16:04:45 274s1.22 L Interesting, the imbalance print was 6000 shares with 9500 offering @1.15, but the closing price was 1.22, so it appeared that the offer (or almost all it's quantity) was canceled and the imbalance print swept the book up to 1.23