First of all, every cent you make comes out of the specialist's pocket. Thats how they feel. Second of all, you can track down which specialists hate day traders and which dont just by watching the prints. Ever been printed through the market 20 cents down and then watch the stock keep going up as well as see limits in the book at or around the quote? Third of all, read "The Wall Street Gang" These guys are not exactly your friends and the last thing they do is provide a fair and orderly market. Finally, we had a specialist come in our office to want to learn how to day trade. God knows why, but I think he just wanted to know how to raise volume for his somewhat inactive stocks. The managing partner says to him "You know we dont exactly like you guys" (in other words we hate your guts and want to kill you sometimes). He replies "we dont like you guys either". He did not let him trade cause he did not trust him. It did seem very shady. BTW, the guy was a short fat ugly pudgy bastard, what a surprise huh? It's one thing to be on the wrong side of the trade but it's another having your market order held when you are trying to get out, or being printed through the market 40 cents in the wrong direction when getting in or out. Ever see a specialist step up with buyers then dissapear and spread down 20 cents. After all the traders get out he comes right back up and does the huge prints. In case you do not understand, he manipulates the day traders to clean out the books, then buys those shares back at a much lower price and then sells them to the actual buyer for a very very nice profit. Better yet, watch how WTW fills his shorts, it is simply amazing. BTW that guy has been losing serious volume because he keeps screwing day traders. And the specialist does not have your order ID, he has your clearing firm. Of course they know who the day traders are but they do not know who is who personally. Very often, the specialist who hate day traders fill them badly and print the rest at a better price. I personally stay away from the dick guys no matter how great the moves. 2 of the stocks I trade almost everyday are CIT and FSH. They never hurt me and I read them well. Sometimes I do lose money on them but simply cause I keep getting on the wrong side. Those specialists let me out without purposely trying to hurt me. They just trade the stock. If a buyer or seller pulls, I know Im not gonna get a print 20 cents up/down.
Lundy, "If you are scalping for 5 cents a trade, of course you will get screwed. The specialist has your order ID, if you try to buy the bid, and then post an order to sell a few cents above, he SEES you." How is this ? Your Order ID will be a different # on your sale from what is was on your buy. Can you elaborate on this. Does the Specialist have any other info such as Broker Id ????? I scalp thin liqudity listed stocks, and there are some Specialists who really are ruthless. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated. TIA
what's wrong with choppy charts? if you know the thing is trendless, you know it won't run away from you, and that is an extremely liberating bit of information. i hope the market stays choppy-trendless for years!
it has to be a "dick", right, it can't just be that the same thing that has you spooked and running for the exit waving a market order surrender flag has a whole bunch of other people desperate to get out and, naturally, nobody all that interested in going in, leaving you in a very long very slow moving line. it couldn't be something that obvious, right? if you're finding yourself in that situation a lot, the problem isn't the specialist, the problem is you're making bad trades. imo.
Wow amazing I do not think you have much experience because otherwise you would understand what I am talking about. But apparently you do not. If you order is being held as everyone is scrambling and then one huge print goes off taking everyone or most ppl out, that is one thing. That is being on the wrong side of the trade and it happens. The job of the specialist there is to be "fair and orderly" and not completely screw you, just be reasonable. Whatever, I dont expect him to stick his neck out but just not take the stock 50 cents in the wrong direction for whatever reason. But when prints are going off left and right and you just happen to want to get out for whatever reason and your order is being held and being printed out at the low/high and then the stock goes right back in the opposite direction, then smth is fishy. Usually thats the choppy charts you see on many of these stocks. I've pointed out the example with LLY, and that happens almost everytime with many specialists. So when you say that you have never been screwed, I wonder whether you even trade NYSE. Everyone has been screwed even with top notch selection. Do you work on the floor by any chance?
what game, exactly, do you think you're trying to play? this isn't church bingo, this is wall street, it's ALWAYS fishy, it's ALWAYS BEEN fishy, it's ALWAYS GOING TO BE fishy. if it's moving fast and you place a market order, you know ahead of time you're probably going to get screwed but you're willing to take the pain to get out. if it's moving slow and you place a market order, you have no one to blame but yourself. i'm seeing your rants all over ET this evening. ok, you had a bad week, it happens, go have a pint and get over it already. Do you work on the floor by any chance? no, but if you want me to pretend i do so you have someone other than yourself to blame, i will. it's a holiday weekend, go relax.
Actually I have had a great 3 weeks and I have only had one big losing day. I'm just amazed at how you actually manage to defend some of these scumbags. Do you even read what I say, or do you just pick out what you want to prove your obviously erroneous point? It's really funny that you are under the impression that the specialists treat everyone the same because that alone will make you a losing scalper. The edge that our group trains is to pick out the right stocks that will not hurt you because the specialists trading them actually just trade the stock instead of being manipulative greedy bastards on a powertrip. 100% of the trades are never going to work out, that much is obvious. The goal is not to get hurt by having the proper selection. I'm not even posting rants, I'm pointing out the specialists and what they do. These are stocks you should not trade and you should simply realize the fact why.
Mecro, Hayman, I apologize if I was misleading when speaking of order ID's. I don't know the in's and out's of whats on the specialist book. I just assumed it was that way because I trade very thin stocks. Sometimes a stock won't even print for 5 minutes. I figured the specialist could easily see the traders. If my assumption is wrong, then it's wrong, no biggie. However, I do trade listed stocks and I know enough about them to make money. Specifically I trade the 36 most volatile stocks between 60 and 110 with volume between 100k and 2 million. Today I traded DHR, BRL, LEH, OMC, AZO, LEN, AMG. AZO 1.06 gain DHR .10 gain BRL .12 gain LEH .35 gain OMC .32 gain LEN .40 loss AMG .27 gain I grossed 1.72 on 7 trades. I know what the specialist game is about, enough to make consistent profit from it. BTW, all my trades were on the long side today. I feel my edge is due to the auction nature of the listed stocks. Cheers to the specialist! For anyone struggling with listed stocks, heres some valuable insights I gleaned from Livermore's book: It's not about knowing if a stock is going to go up or down, it's about knowing when it will make the move. How I apply that to my trading is I wait for the specialist to flush the daytraders... I wait until the big move starts, not 1 tick early, and not 1 tick late. (at least thats my mentality) There is no way the specialist is going to change everything for my 100(0) shares when he has big blocks of trades to execute, and he's already bought all the shares he needs for the big move up. The trick is to wait until everyone else is flushed out, or as J.L puts it, the right psychological point.