Thank you murray, dvshucks, emjroll! I appreciate your comments, they are very helpful. Now, after 9 years, I finally know why when I place a hidden order for 5000 shares at bid, the price stops at my price and turns down. Then as soon as I cancel the order, the market comes back and goes thru my limit price and the only problem is that I dont get filled!!!. Its the MMs watching everything!!! Now I see that they SEE everything even if it is a hidden/show only order! One mystery solved.
dvshucks, UBSS is UBS Warburg. They used to be ubsw, now it changed to ubss. The market maker has been very active lately just like nite and schwab. Also wayne, the link i provided you is kind of out dated, they are missing ETRD which is etrade's MM symbol.
I once saw a Market Maker pull rabbit out of a hat. Then he proceded to saw a Specialist in half! For his final trick he slipped out of 3 staight jackets while hanging upside down from the Brooklyn Bridge! Anyway those are by far the best Market Maker Tricks I have ever seen
Learned alot from this thread - much appreciated some questions: - any decent books on MM activities - just to try to get a more general understanding of it? - especially on what Threei was posting - Level 2, based on the info Threei provided, seems to be very applicable to penny stocks - does L2 apply to some stocks more than others? and two questions which I always wanted to ask but was just to embarassed to: - is their such a thing as Paid Bashers that roam all of the stock chat boards - supposedly this comes from the MM's -is it possible to make an educated guess if a pump and dump is about to happen? - this is manipulation which somehow the MM's must know about Thanks
I knew a Specialist (specialist vs mm is like street walker vs. hooker) on the Amex who told me some very special stories, and I remembered them. But one thing he told me struck home..(his mother was in the same firm). "Mom always told me, a teenie is a teenie......." It is the way they think. Knowing that should help you. You should also realize that they will trade dog feces if there is volume. That should tell you what you're dealing with. As a trader, I never like hanging my order out in front of them. If I'm buying, I like to pick them off with limit orders, and if I don't get what I want, I cancel. and wait. I've had more success with that, and I don't feel I have the "go ahead and rape me" sign out there. But that's a personal phobia I have. I've seen way to much. I have lived in dog years. And buy the way, if you are trying to accumulate, and you see that block Brandon is talking about, the overhead is probably gone, and it a great indicator you are going higher. Works well w/ Nasdaq issues. You can scan for that. I'm not that sophisticated. This is simple stuff, but I think a lot of blown up guys get too sophisticated.
Imagine, IMO - that description is as deep as you'll ever need... no book will give you exact idea of how to spot this kind of games; experience will however. First, this is live and ever-changing game, highly liquid situation. While that description I posted has general "quidelines", from there it's about individual that plays the game. He may be more shrewd and play the game with greater perfection, or he may follow simple idea of "I'll post 895K offer to spook them into selling to me" and quit playing games just as he gets what he wanted. Look at it as tennis or martial arts, blow by blow, each partner changes his behavior with each move as situation dictates, while general idea is still there all the time. Second, while book can give you understanding of that general idea, it can't guide you through any possible situation. In videos that I made for the course I tried to comment on some Level 2 action as it came around, and out of several dosens trades not once have I encountered situation where this kind of games would solely dictate more than just adjustment of my buying or selling price by couple cents. To give you an example: chart shows 10.20 as long trigger; I see big offer at 10.21, so I change my entry ide to 10.22 with comment: want to see if that offer gets taken confirming the strength. On Level 2 applicability - generally the thinner stock is the easier it is to play games on it. Post 100K bid on FORD or ABLE or GEOI, and traders hit the offer right away. Do the same on MSFT, nobody cares. There are paid or self-serving promoters that hit e-mail lists and/or message boards; for MM to engage in this kind of activities would be highly illegal, so even if some shady ones do that it will be rather exception.
http://nasdaqtrader.com/static/tdhome.stm You can see what MMs traded each stock the most in the last month or quarter--If a less active MM is trading, it's probably just an order, if its one of the top guys, i'm less likely to trade against them.
Thank You Dvshucks. This is a great link. Very, very useful to see MM activity. I have a question: Is it true that if a retail trader bought 3000 to 20,000 shares of any stock, MMs will prevent the stock from going in the trader's intended direction? From experience, I have noticed that if I buy 5000+ shares, there apears to be a cap on the stock which holds the stock down until I get rid of the shares. As soon as I sell my large lot, it goes and hits my target. ANy ideas will be appreciated.