Arnie, the way it works is like this. Federal statutes authorize the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to make rules governing the various securities exchanges, including the NYSE. These rules, in turn, govern the specialists. The various exchanges can propose rules and rule changes, but the S.E.C. ultimately decides.
Stock777, It seems you have rather poor reading comprehension. Did you read this thread? Did you read the article I posted? Perhaps these would satisfy your desire to see some specifics about specialist criminal activity. If they don't, then I would suggest you try to do a little research using Google. Or may I suggest that you pick up a newspaper on a regular basis and become an informed person, and then you would know that lots and lots of specialist criminal activity occurs on NYSE. If you aren't capable of finding this type of specific info for yourself, then I think I would be wasting my time by spoonfeeding you. NYSE trading should be made electronic, pure and simple. No other advanced nation relies on such outdated technology for trading; all other advanced nations use electronic trading, not a specialist system. The reason why the NYSE resists appropriate technology is that it would undermine the entire scam. You ridiculed me for complaining about no fill. If your reading comprehension were not so poor, you would know that I made no such complaint. It is obvious that you are not even paying attention to what has been said in this thread. If you are not going to pay attention, then you waste everybody's time by posting messages into the thread. May I suggest that you read the thread first, and then give us the benefit of your wisdom? You say that there has been improvement at NYSE. Can you give more specific info about what improved, and by how much, and when this occurred?
Arnie, The scenario I gave posited that the specialist received a buy limit at 40.32 from customer A, and a sell market order from customer B. This scenario never suggested that the bid of 40.32 was publicly displayed by the specialist as the specialist bid. An order is publicly displayed in this fashion only in certain situations. If the order is executed very soon after the specialist receives it, then the order will never be publicly displayed as part of the specialist's quoted bid or ask. The scenario I gave never involved any offer at 40.29. Customer B's order was a market order, not a limit order. It was executed at a price of 40.29, but it never had a limit price of 40.29. Customer B's order was never publicly displayed as part of the specialist's offer, because it was a market order. Now try taking another look at my posting discussing the scenario, and see if you can make some sense of it.
I think I do know how it works and I think I explained a good bit of how it works. You obviously disagree with my explanation. So why don't you articulate the specifics of your disagreement? You fail to give anything specific. You do nothing but insult me. You insult me personally, rather than specify the fault in my arguments. I think you should try to make a specific contribution to this discussion. If your mind is too weak to do so, or to do anything other than insulting people, then you should just go away.
If we put the criminals in jail, and wipe out NYSE corruption and the horse-and-buggy specialist system, then we will greatly reduce the costs and risks of trading. Most traders will benefit. Some traders will lose, because they trade strategies which depend upon NYSE inefficiencies, and some of those will be unable to find any other way to trade profitably. But most traders, and society as a whole, will win. It is not a blessing that some traders do well with NYSE. They are doing well with profits obtained from a system based on fraud, crime, corruption, and waste. NYSE steals money from widows and orphans and pensioners and other investors, and then a cut of the loot goes to traders who figured out how to game the NYSE to their own advantage. I say traders should not make their living by feeding off a system of crime, fraud, corruption and waste.
Jim, Great posts and excellent use of real examples on how the traders/ investor is facing an uphill battle with the specialist. Don, a world without a specialist would definitely make for a fairer playing field (traders will always have a different approach, shorts, longs, overbought, oversold, MA, retracements, etc....), so there will never be a perfect market where one can not make money, The point is why should we (traders) battle wits with the specialist who is dealing the cards from a tainted deck. This is a great forum to share experiences and views, in reading through the entire thread, no one has told of any good experiences of being treated fairly by the NYSE, if that's the case why are we keeping them in business. If everyone wised up and started using the fairer ECN's or maybe just switching over to the Nasdaq, then maybe the NYSE would get the hint and lose all of their retail customers.
It seems none of you have a clue on how to trade. That is why you don't make money, it has nothing to do with the dealers. You are good at whining on message boards though. Maybe if you devoted as much time to improving your abilities you might amount to something some day. For now I'll just keep taking and spending your money.
jimford, personally I haven't seen any problems with speciliasts, Sure they will jerk you around sometimes, but what else is there to do? No buy orders, You and a few other traders are there throwing in 500-1000 share lots. Who else is there to buy/sell your shares? Specialists, So they play around with the price a bit, its not like the shares are going anywhere with your 500-1000 share buy order. The key is knowing when there is a real buyer, then these jerk arounds won't happen. You are un-informed on the process which makes you feel you are being victimized, When I believe almost any decent trader will tell you, theres no such thing as victimized , Only no liquidity and bad fills. A specialist won't fill you 500 shares and then let you profit 50 cents off that for no reason. The only time when he does it is because he has to, when theres 20 other orders also ready to buy, He has nothing else to do, BUT to turn up the price because of increase of demand. He's not there to give you free money.. You will find 99% of the time when they jerk you around on price, Stop trading and look @ the stock when the market closes @ 4:00 . 99% of the time the stock probably would have stayed stagnat mainly because there was no "real" demand. Just you , some specialists, and maybe some other traders and maybe one retail 200 share lot buyer Now how do you think a price would budge with a demand like that? You ain't getting jerked around, You are just playing in a sandbox full of piss and think hershey syrup might suddenly burst out from the sandbox floor. Its not going to happen. Thats it.
Finally, a reasonable comment. Thanks ang_99. If you don't like the way the exchange conducts its business - STOP DOING business with them, i.e. trade something else. Think about it this way, via a simple act of not "buying" their product, you will force them to become more competitive. Mike