you sound like a nervous specialist. take the cancels away, watch the ECNs light up, then go enjoy another one of your favorite dick sandwiches and look for a job!
Hell yes lol, keep that in mind. the difference between us is that i can win a fair fight. great song
Nobody is suggesting that traders should be prevented from cancelling open orders. We are, instead, complaining about fraudulent practices which undermine markets. We are complaining that a specialist's quote should not be retracted after somebody submits an order agreeing to trade with the specialist's quote. The specialist's quote should be "firm", as required in almost all situations by the firm quote rule, under U.S. securities law. We are saying that the law should be enforced. The specialist, just like any other trader, should not be permitted to retract his quote, after somebody else submits an order agreeing to execute against the specialist's quote. We are also complaining that retail traders are often not permitted to cancel resting orders when we should be able to do so. We are also complaining that specialists should not be permitted to display bogus, stale, unexecutable quotes, which deceive market participants as to the true state of the market, and thereby mislead them into giving their money away to the specialists and to their allies and cronies.
The specialist is, by federal law, given legally protected special powers and information to control trading in his assigned securities. The specialist is given unique knowledge of unexecuted buy and sell orders, which helps the specialist to profit from the trading he controls. The specialist, in return, is obligated to facilitate trading by matching buy orders with sell orders. The specialist is permitted to participate in a trade only when there are insufficient buy orders to match against sell orders, or vice versa; because the fundamental purpose of the specialist is to minimize trading costs and risks for society in general. Suppose the specialist receives an order to buy 100 shares at 40.32 from customer A, and an order to sell 100 shares at market from customer B. The specialist is then obligated to match these two orders, at some price less than or equal to 40.32, without participating in the trade. One of the criminal scams pulled by specialists is to violate this obligation. The specialist will instead, for example, buy the 100 shares from customer B at 40.29, a price less than that bid by customer A. The specialist will then immediately sell those shares to customer A at 40.31. This gives the specialist a 2 cent profit, without taking any risks whatsoever. This 2 cent profit for the specialist, however, did not in any way facilitate trading by customer A or customer B. This practice instead increases the cost and risk of trading for the public. If customer A's buy order had not existed, then the specialist would have been justified in buying from customer B. If the specialist later sold to some other customer, whose buy order arrived subsequently, then the specialist would hope to make a profit, in exchange for the risk he took by buying and holding the stock until a buyer arrived. A similar mechanism would operate if only a buy order was present in the absence of a sell order. Either way, the specialist should only profit in exchange for the risk he takes by buying or selling stock when then there is no other counterparty. A specialist is not permitted to step in between two willing parties, to prevent them from trading with each other, so that the specialist can participate and impose a tax on one or either side. This is a crime. Many people will defend this and other criminal activity by specialists, because, through various arrangements, they share in the proceeds from the criminal activity.
Jim, With all due respect, the specialist doesn't operate under any statutory law, either state or federal. Regarding the scenario you described, how can there be an offer at 40.29 when the bid is at 40.32? Wouldn't that offer have already been filled? The specialist will instead, for example, buy the 100 shares from customer B at 40.29, a price less than that bid by customer A.
jimrockford, I assure you I am no apologist for any MM or spec. Let's see an actual example of thievery, not some vague talk of 'quotes pulled', 'orders held', etc. Trading with a spec is not the same as trading with an ecn, so you can't expect the same speed of execution. Folks seem to want the best of all worlds. Yeah, the futures are screaming up , and the NYSE SPY price is 4 cents away from the ECN trades, and you complain of no fill. PS, they are now quite fast at updating and theres very little lag, there used to be way more.
I agree with all of the complaints being voiced here. But the reality is that Specialists and MM's are in business to make money at our expense. The SEC does very little to protect the individual investor. Just look at the dot.com settlements with the big IB's. They stole billions from retail investors, and pay millions in fines. It's always like that. Wall Street is a rigged game.
i'm not trying to be a jerk, but what happens when you send mktable limits with good expectancy on a thin issue? when trying to hit prices that are already bad or edge neutral, there's less resistance if any. that's my take on it anyway. call it a surge in demand, traffic jam, whatever ... the quote shouldn't be on my screen if it's filled, or about to be lifted without a fill following receipt of my order the abuse is so ubiquitous in my brief experience, i'm not sure how you can miss it. unless you're an investor, position trader, or a daytrader who's ok with a 1 minute margin of error for the specialist which it seems many people apparently are
Still cant understand people complaining about specialists. Its a blessing to have 2 market structures, some do well with NYSE and others Naz. If you don't like listed there is plenty of securities to trade that don't go through specialists...so whats the problem?