Lets say a stock gaps up and prints...30 cents higher I would like to know the kind of order that the specialist got that caused the stock to gap like that...I am assuming the order was a spray order or a limit sweep through...which basiclly means someone comes in and tells the specialist i want to take everything in your limit book up to a certain price...(but im only guessing) ....Is there a way that i can find out? once the trade is made...isnt it public information???? Where can i find out?
I think the only information you'll see is the size of the print on the T&S. I doubt that there's any way to tell who or how they did the order. You *might* be able to get the firm that it went through, but I suspect no more. I know of traders that have accidentally sent large orders into very thin markets (sometimes on a market order). Naturally, these clean out the book and then some, so the print comes out quite a ways from the market. Unless you have access to anothers account, there's no way to see it. I'm still speculating here, but if a large institution placed an order that moved the market significantly, I'd expect any public information about who and how that order went in would create a lot of scrutiny in some of the public funds. It seems that the exchanges would want very much to make this sort of information inaccessible.
There is no specific order type. If an order for size hits the market there may be an order imbalance and the specialist will raise (lower) the price to a point where supply can meet demand (and to reduce their risk if they are taking a big piece of the other side). So if the market is say 25.05 at 25.07 and someone sends in a bid to buy 1 million shares at 25.35, they'll probably end up taking out the entire book up to 25.35.