This happened today while I was riding down a SPY short - Iwas "in the money" pretty good on the trade and had no intention of getting out but as a rule I like to place a hard stop order in case data goes down, etc. You'll need to view both files for it to make sense - I was so pissed that I actually downloaded Snagit6 and configured it and copied the screens in about 15 min, that's why it took me a few bars to get the screen image but believe me, this honestly happened. I thought that before I send this to SEC with a complaint and my .02 on the Island bullshit that a few of you could see it and make sure I'm not wrong... Thanks
OK, I cant seem to manage to attach the file to my post.. When I go to "browse' on the file attachment section of the posting page I can get to the file on my hard drive but it won't seem to attach to the post... It is a .gif so it should work I made sure that the file size is OK, is there another trick? Thanks
OK it turns out that ET needs to enable my ability to post files.. will keep working on it, this one is worth it. Paul
Exactly Dan, the very existence of specialists and market makers makes the whole system suspicious. Everything should be electronic and with public order books. A true believer in free markets will agree with me that markets can keep themselves orderly and liquid, with minimal intervention from the government. The role of the government is just to enforce the rules, guarantee market integrity, and put the con men and the thieves in jail. Anybody who says otherwise is just protecting his government-granted right to screw people. And sadly, these very people are worse enemies than Osama Bin Laden or Sadam because they are undermining from the inside the greatest human invention of all times and the pride of all true Americans: Free Market Capitalism.
He he he... I know a former specialist from the gone PSE. He's not a crook, specialists aren't crooks. Traders are crooks compared to an "average" investor.
Buzz, I was not speaking to an inherent corruption in the specialist system, just that if they have the opportunity to exploit you, they will.
OK I might believe it if only buddist monks are allowed to be specialists. But my point is: are specialists and market makers really necessary for markets to work efficiently?? Do they play a socially worthy role?? One of the great things about the free market is that it tends to put inefficient institutions out of business. When I try to figure out why the free market still hasn't weed out of the system specialists and market makers the answer I get is, that's right, the government - the SEC. Look what has happened last weekend: just when the free market votes with volume that Island is a more efficient way of doing things than the specialist system what do these communists do? They shut Island prices down, they transfer back the power to fix prices (and hopefully the volume) from the free market's invisible hand to the specialist's very visible hand. When I say that the system is crooked I am not saying that specialists are crooks although a lot of them are, what I am saying is that the purity of our free market system is at stake and that the free market has spoken clearly: they are superfluous and it's extinction time. If we don't stop this right now we might end like Japan or the UK: another loser EX-super power and Osama wins.
I get smacked dozens of times a day (no exaggeration, allowing for a majority of reasonable fills) by the specialists/market, and I've vented on ET quite a bit about it. You know, I believe specialists play an important role. I really do. The problem is that they bend the rules too often, for their own gain, at the expense of screen traders. Specialists aren't "the government," either. They are operators in free enterprise just like screen traders are. Specialists have kept the NYSE and AMEX working well for a long, long, time. It's the <i>bad with the good,</i> basically. Every day I find the best quotes for the stocks I trade at the NYSE. I don't find them on ISLD. They could be there, but they aren't.