One other point I neglected to mention.....make sure the 39 print was a NYSE trade if your order was on the NYSE. Most quote systems quote all trades, even if they trades away from NYSE. You would be entitled to fill if there was a print through your limit unless the print took place somewhere else away from the NYSE. Alot of possibilities as to why you may not have been filled, none of which have a thing to do with the specialist screwing you, or the NYSE being screwed up. OldTrader
You're wrong, if the specialist already pre-determined that the stock he has in hand is gonna fill at a certain price, and he already has enough to fill, your limit doesn't matter because he doesn't have the shares to fill you. Plus limit orders are the last to get filled. Specialists don't trade a market as soon as you put iit in. That's an old myth, that a market order is instantly executed. The specialist in the above had the market order and was deciding where to fill it, so by the time your order was there, like I said, there was no more stock for you, and your order just went on to become the inside quote. If you can, can you give us the time this happened on the TOS, sowe can look at it.
Calibertrader: Think about what you just said: "You're wrong, if the specialist already pre-determined that the stock he has in hand is gonna fill at a certain price, and he already has enough to fill, your limit doesn't matter because he doesn't have the shares to fill you." If you have a limit order on the book, your order will go into the determination of the specialist if he's going to print a trade at 39, UNDER your limit. If he doesn't have the shares to fill you, he's still obligated to fill, and therefore would short the stock to you. Your above statement is incorrect assuming that the limit order is there. Now if he is printing the trade prior to your limit arriving, that's a different matter. Further, a specialist does not hold a market order if that's what you're attempting to say. He executes it immediately upon receipt. The exception to that might be an order so large as to create an large order imbalance, at which point he might shut the stock down temporarily. But trust me, there are few individuals trading at a size that would create an order imbalance by themselves with a market order. Hopefully this clears up your confusion on this matter. OldTrader
No, cause I've had market orders held for two minutes in stocks that I've traded. He may know where he's gonna fill you immediately, but he doesn't report or show the trade on the tape until he's ready. That's the point I'm trying to make, if the order that he had was already pre-determined but he didn't report it yet, and never traded back through that price and kept going in the opposite direction, then he doesn't have to fill the limit. There are no more shares. The inside quote was misaligned probably for a few seconds, but he fixed. He was overwhelmed by the other order so that the computer took over the quoting. Now, it's possible that the trader pulled his order, his quotes were slow, it could be a matter of factors. That's why asked him to provide the time of the trade, so we can go back and examine what happened, and give a better answer potentially, rather going back andforh trying to make answers based on assumption. I'm sure we're both right, but we need to know exactly what was going on on the tape at the time.
I never pulled my order. I waited until after I got filled at 47 when he moved his quote back up to cancel my original order. The trade happened in the first 30 minutes of the day probably around 15 minutes into the trading day. I don't have the exact time, but it is the low of the first 30 minutes of the day where he printed the 28.39 and several other prints at 28.40 thru me. It is the only move down there in the morning.
Oldtrader To borrow your line....Think about what you just said. So spread is 80.10 by 80.30. To get out of my long all I have to do is throw out 80.20 and when he prints above that for a couple times and rips it back down to 80.00 I can just call and say I am "ENTITLED" to the fill. Thanks....I had no idea I was getting so screwed. Go back and read Tharps response....you have to be on his book for a set amount of time b4 the specialist has to take your order. If I am wrong ..... please direct me to the proof.
So it is possible like I said, you put your bid in, the specialist already decided to print the seller he had at .39, and had no shares to fill your order, and from that point went up. It doesn't matter that your order was there for 30 seconda, cause he could've decied the other orders fill 15 seconds earlier, and took the 45 seconds to fill the order. A specialist is not required to fill everybody at a price, especially when he already filled all the other shares. Putting a limit order out is like telling him to give you any leftovers. If there are none, you get nothing, sometime's he's nice and gives you part of the order, but he's not obligated to give you any of the order if the stock is not available at that price. So there were no more downticks there, in order to fill your bid. He upticked from there. Now if he had upticked and then downticked to your bid and still no fill for you, then he f***ked you.