What would be the purpose of a specialist to put out a "fake" bid/offer? If it is small enough not to hurt him why bother with that small amount of money? If it is a large order he could get executed and may lose a lot of money if he is wrong?? When they are trading millions of shares daily do they really have the time to play "penny ante" games with 200 share daytraders? isn't' the DOT system automatic for small orders? Just curious? SteveD
SteveD The specialist is trying to make money as well. If he can screw over a few daytraders and give his buddies on the floor a break, he 'll be sitting even tighter with them. As for fake bid/offer, I can only ass/u/me it is used as a way for them to make action. People see a 250k share order in the book, they try to get in front of it via ECN's which could be the specialists. That's my grand NYSE specialist conspiracy theory. http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
Ok now to correct everyone THE SPECIALISTS CANNOT AND DO NOT F**K WITH THE OPEN BOOK. PERIOD. That is not the specialist but other traders, programs and bulge bracket firms. Guess what, any one of us can do it also. I do it all the time but it's nothing comparing to what a super trader in my group can do as he once ran up a stock 40 cents on day trader momo with fake stepping bids. You take a risk of getting hit and I have once on a thin stock with 5k. The specialist actually let me off easy on that one. The specialists f**k with the quote & order execution. They don't need to mess with the book. Now whether there is collusion between a trader messing with the book and the specialist, well I'm thinking that there is now judging from what I have seen. Just like they pull the floor buyer/seller for a few min to screw the day traders and give them very special fills, they seem to have started doing the same if the buyer/seller are going electronically through the OB. Sometimes it's just the trader trying to get some fills but I've been noticing the specialist picking up/shorting shares during those pulls as if he knows the guy will come back (which he does right after all the small fish gets shaken)
The NYSE trades about 2 billion a day. If my math is correct that is about 300,000,000 shares an hour. When and why would a specialist have time or the inclination to bother with a very miniscule amount of money from "daytraders"? The small orders are done automatically. The only person on ET who has any knowledge of this operation is Don Bright. All of the rest seem to have a paranoid conspiracy theory. Some independent floor brokers may try to "front run" a stock and they caught several of them last year. Some may go to prison or at least be banned from the securities industry. I just don't see the risk/reward potential. But these are not specialist. I saw one statistic that reported that "daytraders" were less than 1% of the volume of Nasdaq!!. SteveD
You seem to have a pattern on ET of making of fool of yourself with your many misinformed post. Are you sure you trade for a living dipshit. Opening indications are part of the NYSE vendor data package. Open Book, Liquidity Quote, Imbalances. Most vendors that have a product worth trading on subscribe to all the data available. Redi, Instaqoute, Real-Tick, Sterling. http://www.nyse.com/productservices/infoprod/1092772591169.html
Actually it is because I trade for a living and that I have written to all these APIs that I know that you don't know what you are talking about. In fact I have had an OpenBook implementation from five different brokers and not one had implemented Imbalances and Opening Indications. But keep giving advice, it's a good laugh. nitro
Learn to code, if you are capable, and you too can find out how to write simulators. Laziness won't get you anywhere and neither will begging others to do it for you on a public forum. nitro