so, has anyone else been frustrated as hell this week with the bullshit that the specialists are pulling?? These pricks have been ignoring my NX orders, itemizing me frequently on orders over 1000 shares and i think i got price improvement maybe 5 times all week it seems like- and i trade @150K shares/ day. It has been especially frustrating when you are trying to hit a bid (which have been very thin this week and last) on an NX order, then the specialist shows down 10 cents and prints it, ignoring your NX order to sell at the bid. It seems that they are very quick on the futures turns to make the market 1x1, print 100 shares at the price to fulfill the obligation, then the fucking of traders begins. When I enter say a 2000 or 3000 share order to exit a position- lets say that i am trying to exit a short- i usually place the order 3-7 cents through the offer and i have had the great fun of having the specialist see my order come in, spread his market to the upper limit of my order, print my block there, then immediately be 5 cents lower on the next print- this is obviously a bigger problem in the slower times. Tuesday and Thursday were great days P/L wise for me- the rest of the week i did ok- @600-700 net/ day- but still, it seems that executions have been more challenging to get recently. Anyone else have the same experiences??
Pepsi specialist is always great. I used to pair trade KO/PEP and the PEP specialist has done me more favors than I can count. A lot depends on the specialist him/herself and the firm that trains and hires them. A word from experience: stay away from Susquehana stocks -- they're always working against you, don't honor cancels, etc. E.g., TXN specialist is downright mean on a good day. SLK specialists are generally hired hands and focus more on providing a fair and orderly market. IMHO
Do you guys have a quick link where I can see what firm the specialists work for? I have never seen this info, havn't looked for it, but still. Is there a good site to find this info? thanks
here's a link to the NYSE website which lists the major firms. http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/specialist_list.pdf From there you can google each of them and on their respective sites they list all the stocks the make markets in.
I just cruised there websites and of the stocks that I have traded there that I recognize, I found some of the worst stocks I have ever traded. I.e. IBM, NOC, AZO, LEN Now granted some people IBM well, but I still find him to be an arse and he is difficult to trade. Just curious, is there another firm you like?