Do you notice any difference in your trading regarding routing open orders to NYSE vs other exchanges (i.e. the likelihood of manipulation against the trader)?
no and you can your broker and get them to call the specialist if you think it happened. eg. specialist indicates and you get printed outside of his indication. happens every so often but still pretty rare and it's usually due to some technical problem.
Nasdaq runs their own opening cross in NYSE/AMEX issues. Different opening prices are very common between the NYSE and NASDAQ in the same stock.
So if a person sees manipulation going on with the broker he is using, it isn't a function of where the trade is routed, and if he will direct route e.g. ARCA, you believe there would be no benefit? Please elaborate. Thanks.
The NYSE specialist has no control over prices "printed" on other routes. You need to be much more specific in the question that you are asking.