How can the nyse be more transparent when the specialist now has even more control over the stock than prehybrid with the use of proprietary algorithms. Having a floor and a book was as transparent as it got. Hybrid will become a mess of nasdaq type hidden orders with a puppetmaster. The specialist no longer has to provide liquidity that used to be determined on a trade by trade basis. Now he can manipulate the stock even more than before. I welcome change and will adapt to hybrid, but I don't like when the nyse and sec makes claims that specialist system has been fixed, and develop this hybrid system that creates more problems with specialist's control. What they are selling to the public is the opposite of what has been created.
I do not see any meanigfull difference in my stocks or profits yet on 250 trades/day... Other than greater fragmentation to ECNS... In fact, if I wasn't reading about Hybrid, I would not even be aware that "something is happening". The NYSE is steadily losing market share. If the doomsayers are correct about "upstairs Specialists manipulating the NYSE with black boxes"... How in the world are they gonna hang on to market share? There is something wrong with that picture.
I think you're an appropriate person to ask this question: So do the specialist really try to screw traders? I mean is it true that the specialist is always trying to go against the "day traders"? You know , like everytime you buy the high it drops down to hell and gets you out before it goes higher. Is that all done by the specialist? This is the one answer that I need to make a career decision, so please help me if you can. thanks
It is not a question of whether the specialist is trying to "screw the day traders." He doesn't know if the order flow coming on sdot is from joe day trader in alaska or goldman sachs. He's just trying to create order in the marketplace. With hybrid, transparency is gone and now he has an unfair advantage of order flow. Before order flow was seen on the book, in the crowd, now it comes into his proprietary algorithm and gets executed. At least with nasdaq there isn't a specialist involved. People have this negative connotation of specialists. They are there to dampen volatility, like an auctioneer. Like them or not, those of you who wished they were gone, now they are more involved than before. Enough discussion, just trade the market.
Is there any reasonable way to play for Price Improvement under the Hybrid System? Certain situations or stocks?
When hybridf started to kick in, i watched the movements and tried to get into the spec's mind. What I came to realize is that specs are getting screwed much more. why? here's why: 1. ealrier, the brokers had no choice but to go to the spec to get their orders in. a price was decided and the spec would accumulate over a cheap range (say for a buy order) and sell dear to the broker. Now the brokers can, and i believe they are, skip the spec and even go against him. I think it's a tougher situation for specs now that they are on their own. 2. The spec was the person who took the best advantage of price improvement, and with that gone, he has less room to play around with. he can't control those 50-80 cent sweeps - even he's losing out on those opps. Day-traders who traded 30 years back feared that NYSE going on computers might kill them. Some survived - and made big. People who read the tape 6 years back feared that the openbook might kill them. Some survived - and made big. We have nohing to fear, lots to analyze.