You're talking about limit orders here. Thats is something completely different from a stop order. Of course a limit order is in the orderbook and is visible to the specialist, as it is visible to anyone else too. In fact, all orders in the orderbook are limitorders. A stoporder is not a real order. It becomes a real order only when the trigger is hit. Then, and only then, if it is a (stop)limit order will it be entered in the orderbook and be visible to anyone interested. Ursa..
Do yourself a favor and place an odd lot stop loss. I've done this. At least with my broker it goes to the market maker immediately if the stop loss is anywhere within a few percent of the bid/ask. This may be broker specific, but still with the nasdaq, stop loss orders are not allowed because there is more than one market maker per stock. Your brokerage would have no idea WHO to send the order to, so they either have to try to simulate the order within their system, or just send it as a normal limit order.
As a side note I have 5 ameritrade accounts. They have a system known as trade triggers. This is the only way you can avoid the market maker knowing where your stops losses are. You can use trade triggers and say when stock X reaches X price place a market order or limit order to sell the stock.
How do you know? It is sent to the exchange alright (if native) but that is not the same as that the marketmaker sees it! Ursa..
IB has 'conditional orders' that do the same. I use them mainly to trigger one instrument (options) with the price of another (futures). But not to avoid the marketmaker peeking my order, which imo he's unable to do. Again give us proof/example of a marketmaker that is able to view the stoporder queues. Ursa..
Give me proof that he doesn't see it. Why do you think Ameritrade came out with trade triggers? It serves no purpose whatsoever if you could place a stop loss that the marketmaker never sees. Why would anyone ever need to use it?
I'll tell you a little secret. I'm a very analytical person. I always suspected market makers took me out of a lot of my orders needlessly, so I decided to do a little test. Now I set my initial stop on all orders exactly the same way and adjust my position size to account for some potential large swings. My initial stop is always at last significant support minus atr(14). In 2003 I made 364 trades. I made 182 trades placing my stop loss order moments after I placed my buy order. The other 182 trades were placed and mental stops noted. Of the 364 trades my initial stop was hit 156 times. Of those 156 there were 119 hits on my stop where I had a hard stop loss, and only 37 where I had a mental stop. Coincidence? Maybe, but I'll keep playing that coincidence for the rest of my life.
No you prove, you started this. First prove that Santa doesn't exist (nor his sister). As I said earlier there are numerous other uses for conditionals. I gave the example of cross-instrument conditions, options on futures, stock on other stock, dollars on gold etc etc... That is why they are there. For someone so paranoid you have a surprising lack of imagination. Ursa..