The question is does anybody really feel sorry for the floor traders and specialists. Apparently floor traders hand held devices are lagging and having software issues. And they are losing money out of their own pocket. But the question does anybody here on elitetrader really feel sorry for specialists and floor traders, who cant seem to change with times? http://www.nypost.com/business/66679.htm
I suppose the answer would be the same as the answer to the question: would anyone feel sorry for you, if at some point the market becomes so efficient that you no longer have a bankable edge since you could not "change with the times".
Not a bit. First of all, from the article, only the $2 brokers who uses the standard NYSE handheld was affected (NYSE handheld was developed on top of NYFix's terminal, and there have been a history of problems), the larger specialists like SLK, etc, are not affected, since they have their own custom developed handheld systems. It is a matter of adept or die.
"One story making the rounds of the Big Board floor was that an independent trader - known as a $2 broker - had a large buy order executed despite canceling it several minutes before execution. " I thought this experience was reserved for us upstairs traders! Thanks for the link, mahram.
it is obvious that the archaic specialist will never be able to keep up with the market......... i am sure he will be freezing the book frequently.
Being that I've always been a futures trader who rarely trades listed stocks I'm not keen on the specialist system. However ratboy those NYSE boys seem as adaptable as well...a rat! I remember in the early 80's the specialists were so adamant to not recognize the price discovery technology of index futures that they refused to even have the SP contract quoted on the NYSE. That is until programs kept running them over. Shortly after futures, the advent of gigantic mutual funds threatened the Specialists. It's one thing to fade ratboy and Pabst, especially if your at the beck and call of a stocks insiders, but try fading Fidelity when they decide to take down 5% of the float. Then they beat decimalization. They figured, take away my "steenth" or eighth and instead I'll front run you on the pennies. Basically as long as the specialist system exists these guys will have a huge edge. Large volume stocks will gravitate toward multiple electronic ECN platforms that more and more resemble futures but the under a million shares a day stuff will be in the specialists domain for a long time.
"About half the specialists didn't know whether electronic orders took precedence." Amazing that they dont even know the rules and regulations governing their profession.