Speed vs. price is the basic discussion these days. ECN's simply reflect a smaller but more diverse group of bids and offers from other traders. You can trade small size well on most ECN's. Be careful of the pricing....you can buy or sell a dollar away from the real price...in fact many people have programs to show bids and offers with the same decimals, but different big dollar amount to catch others ....this is extremely deceptive, and yet happens all day long. You're selling a stock at 37.23, and you see a 38.15 offer and, because you want to be quick to snag it, you click too quickly and pay up a whole dollar...and (trust me) this happens. For the most part, our traders "rely" on the DOT (NYSE Open Book helps a lot), but "snag" an ECN every so often for a quick fill. It's best to understand the whole game, and do what is best at that particular moment...don't be afraid of using both. Don
I trade NY and often times will offer out or step in with an ecn in panic situations, I will try to step in front when the specialist will spread out, so if he is trying to widen from like.10 x .18 and spreads it to .10 X.25, i will try to step in and offer some out on arca to hopefully get taken out a price maybe a penny or two below the upcoming gap print. This is only effictive in certain situations, I used to send market when the specialist would widen hping to become part of a gap print but often time found myself without the best fill so this is becoming an alternative, and the rebates dont hurt either, but that is the only way I use the ecn's on new york.
215pensy: I concurred with you about geting bad fills when specialist spread and hoping to get print on the gap. And this was only one case which is quite extreme I think Just happened to me last thurs, stock name is ION I was long 400 shrs suddenly spread widen to 1.5 points: 27.45 * 29 with size 150 * 1. I sent sell market orders on DOT for 100 shares, nothing happened, then sent another 100 shares, and finally few seconds after my last 100 shares I got fills on all 400 shares. Guess, what price: 27.42..... No prints happened for the next five minutes and next print from NYSE was 28 for over 15,000 shares. I filed a complaint and showed that the previous print from third market was 28 and the next print fr NYSE was also 28. During the time I got my fills there was really no executions at all from NYSE. ANd I did got improvement of 3 cents. Now my fills is 27.45. SOmebody told me to pursue it to market surveilance, but not really sure if it is worth it and I don't know the procedure either I thought everything (all transactions) has to be shown on the tape (times and sales). ANd I checked both AT Financial and Esignal sources. Without this evidence, the specialist can just pick any number to his liking. Am I right? Now will try to use the ECN alternative for this kind of situation Thanks for the very informative discussions guy
Who's your broker? Was that 28 print before your fill? Is so, I'd try to get that 28 print. What was the time frame of your fill too(how long did it take to get a fill)? If it was over 60 seconds you can get an adjustment pretty easily. But it depends on your broker too.
I would be willing to bet that the Specialist had zero to do with your order being filled like that. Retail market orders are usually handled by the brokers, especially in the 100-500 share range. I agree with Mr. Martinez..."who is your broker?" We never use market orders (for various reasons), but even so, this does not sound like anything the Post would bother with. If you want to print out your exectutions and send them to me, I will personally check it out. Don
DOT (NYSE)----> benefit: price discovery, can do large size, cheap. drawback: not as fast as an ECN ECN(Island, Archi)---> benefit: you get the chance of those hidden orders, speed. You can pick off orders. drawback: you may get picked off because NY may be trading better. Costly if routing out of network if it can. Regional (Bost, CHX, PHilly)--> benefit: auto-x, primary protection, access to their book(may be smaller than everyone else thereby no stock ahead), cheap. drawback: You're not in NY, executions vary from specialist to specialist and floor to floor depending on their systems.
I am a prop trader and trade with Assent LLC. using Hammer sending my market order to DOT. Do you think that my order was handled by retail brokers? Is this possible eventhough I am trading fr a prop firm. Don: I have all docs printed, where can I fax you my docs. Would be interested in knowing what actually happened Thanks
Sorry, forget to mention: previous print was 28 (this is fr third market), no prints from NYSE until 3 minutes later at 28. I got fills at 27.42. I does take 64 seconds for my fills to get executed. The guy that handled my complaint at assent seems inexperienced and not able to provide any justifications for the fills when I asked, except he said that since my order to sell is market order then I should expect to get fills at bid (even though the size is 150 * 1 and spread is over 1 pts) OK