no free money is expected, just honest rapid quotation. if it's not firm, in what sense is it a 'quote'. he should go wide if he has to, and likewise he should be the one eating the cost of his slow technology/system if he can't update on time. these seem like fair responsibilities in exchange for his unique level of access to mike - i understand what you're saying wrt voting with our dollars and our feet. that's what led me to adr's and ishares in the first place. ...frustration with sole exposure to US equity. presumably the next step would be to access foreign assets directly
If a specialist flashs 450 x 200 when you obviously know the stock doesn't trade more then 500 shares every 5 minutes, Who's to blame? Everytime I watch the ask, 8 x 8 I buy 800 shares, I always get filled 800 most at the ask price 70% of the time., 30% sometimes spread out 200 on that exact ask price, 400 200 on other prices. But thats understandable. NOBODYS SELLING YOU HOT SHARES unless you pay up. Who would sit there and hand you shares that are about to go up 50 cents in 20 seconds? Which retard is out there doing this? Which faulty quotes are you recieving? Stop using them. Switch quote providers. I never have problems, the specialist flashing on bid and ask is not a market direction, its for instant liquidity , which shouldn't be much because nobody is sitting around selling 800 shares all the time at your wanted price. Be lucky you can even get shares out on a non-liquid stock or get shares in instantly. Its not them.. Its you.
man, i guess i'm just spoiled by globex. this isn't an infrastructure or data problem. this is a structural problem at the ase and nyse. the probs are unfirm quotes, and specs sitting on marketable orders even in the slowest of markets to their advantage. it may only happen 30% of the time, but it shouldn't happen at all in this day and age. research the exchange's history with regulators on the issue of firmness. i'm not making this shit up. i'm surprised by the resistance here but i also get you all with regard to moving on and not trading in substandard exchanges or products. i'm not trying to force liquidity that's not there, just what's quoted. it's not the end of the world, it's just an outdated transaction cost worth questioning. like bridge trolls, pushy beggars, tea tax, etc
jimmy thinks the markets are there to give him an easy trade. Sorry to burst your bubble pal, but the markets are there to tear you a new one. When you grow up, and face that fact, you will be better off for it. Now don't have an embolism, I'm not the enemy.
Coolweb, You are not paying attention to the allegations and evidence against NYSE. You are incorrect to claim that I am complaining about situations in which an imbalance between supply and demand justifies the specialist's conduct. I am, on the contrary, complaining about situations in which there IS plenty of liquidity on BOTH sides of the market, so that the specialist's actions cannot be justified as anything other than a crime against the parties to the transaction, a crime against the markets, and a crime against society. I don't like to repeat myself, but I will do so for you. I gave, as evidence, my example of my trades in SPY. I found that if I simply routed my orders away from AMEX and NYSE, I would receive, on average, much better prices on immediate executions, rather than waiting for specialists to drag their heels and impose their taxes and delays on my trades. SPY is a special case, because it has so much electronic liquidity away from the specialists. The prices available from this electronic liquidity provide a benchmark against which to judge performance of the specialists. This benchmark clearly demonstrates that something is wrong with specialist performance on SPY. This strongly suggests that the problem also exists for other symbols, even though we don't have electronic liquidity benchmarks to make it as obvious for those other symbols as it is for SPY. You are dismissing allegations and supporting evidence, without paying any attention to the specifics. You are simply assuming that the allegations have no merit, but you are not taking the time to really consider them. I am not blaming specialists for any interference with my trading personally. I have found ways to avoid dealing with specialists. Most traders would benefit from reduced costs and risks and increased trading opportunities, if the exchanges introduced appropriate technology and enforceable trading rules. Investors and society would also benefit. I am sure that many traders are very happy to profit from NYSE inefficiencies. This doesn't mean that those inefficiencies benefit traders as a whole, or society as a whole. The specialist system is dying, so those traders had better find some other way to make their living.
No way, Mike. I don't do business with the exchanges. But my personal boycott means nothing and has no impact. We should all demand that the specialist system, and its crime and fraud and corruption, be smashed. Traders and investors and society as a whole will benefit. Boycotts and market forces are not enough. Market criminals should go to jail. The government should eliminate those of its rules which promote fraud and crime. Markets should be regulated to protect participants against theft and fraud, and to promote efficiency and capital investment and the well-being of society.
what u are doing is complaining, amongst other things, about specialists backing off from their quotes / not honoring them and I think it is a legitimate complain since it is a widely known and common practice, also llegal. I admire your persistence and efforts but I think your time could be better spent elsewhere since u are supposed to be a trader not a crusader: if u experienced unfair treatment by nyse/amex specs I suggest u to file a complain and hope for the best while moving on and carrying on with your trading activities, while avoiding those exchanges once and for all. no pun intended... all the best
coolweb, just as I previously explained, your comments do not address the particular situations, accusations, and evidence against NYSE. Your comments have no relevance to the dispute. Try taking a look at the accusations, instead of assuming that you already know what they are. You are talking about issues which trade less than 500 shares over a 5 minute period. This shows you are clueless. SPY trades millions of shares per day. SPY always trades far more than 500 shares during any 5 minute period during regular trading hours. You simply aren't paying attention. My broker does not provide faulty quotes. My broker has one of the best datafeeds in the business. It is the specialists who provide faulty quotes, and this is a well-known fact. You are also talking about issues which you call illiquid. This shows again that you are not paying attention to what I am saying. SPY is one of the most liquid issues on the planet.
Bitstream, thanks for the comment. I am also complaining about many other things, like slowly updated quotes, unjustified delays, pathetically slow trading technologies, the specialist's conflict of interest, corrupt exchanges which fail to police the specialists, government rules which help foster this inefficient and corrupt system, etc. I think that a little crusading and a little debating make us better traders. I think that filing complaints against specialists is a waste of time, because the exchange processes which investigate customer complaints are just as corrupt as the specialists. The exchange cops are dirty. The corruption of these processes has been confirmed by government investigations, and is discussed, for example, in the Washington Post article I quoted in this thread. I do avoid transacting with specialists, but I think that it is a good thing for traders to talk about the specialist system. I think that this type of discussion benefits many traders, especially newbies, and that it leads to a little bit greater public awareness, which may help hasten the destruction of the specialist system.