Usually all 15 stocks. BTW, I don't trade listed stocks anymore. I know I mentioned that on one of these threads, just thought I would reiterate that so there is no confusion. However when I did, I usually had had positions in all the stocks on my screen at one point or another.
No, we are not looking at trend. I know it's easy to confuse the two. Because you must be thinking, if there is a buyer in the stock, then surely there must be a trend. This is 100% false. In fact, many times I would simply be in a stock the first 30 to 60 minutes because there was a buy or seller on the open and when they were done, that was it the rest of the day, the stock was nothing but chop. Your goal is to stay in the stock as long as the buyer or seller is there. It might be 5 minutes, it might be 5 hours. All double prints tell you is that there are two buyers. They may not necessarily be aggressive. It could also mean there is a go along buyer. Also does not portend aggressiveness. No, I do not look to buy stocks around the double prints, I look to buy or sell where I think the buyer or seller is resting. Where the double prints are is meaningless. As far as where I would place my stops, I would place my stop at that resting spot where the buyer is. Not BELOW it!!!!!!!! If the stock trades at or below where the buyer is, get the hell out of dodge! Usually you will not see a bid at his resting level. His level is usually above the bid price. You need to pay attention to this. Because if that bid gets touched, there will be an avalanche of sellers. Good luck getting out! Now if that level breaks, that does NOT mean to get short! It simply means to get out. So many guys would think, oh, the buyer is done, time to short. None of those guys ever took home a paycheck. You only sell in front of an aggressive seller period! If there are no aggressive buyers or sellers in the stock, stay out of it, move on to the next stock.
...and this is a pattern that you'll see more and more often as execution platforms sharpen their tricks. Many, many times, when you think there is a buyer in the stock you'll suddenly discover that there is also a seller at the same price level. This is the best way to keep churning commissions. In part, this is due to automated trading that's constantly looking to sell into strength (to get a higher price) and buy into weakness. This technique works particularly well in low-vols markets. One more reason to make sure you're in the right stock all the time.
In general it's time to get out but sometimes the specialist will print a small size at the bid without dropping the quote. It might be a trader or a seller who just wants to NX the bid.
No, most of the time the seller will get price improvement. The specialist will usually never allow that bid to be hit because there are resting orders there.
I think if you NX you're not entitled to price improvements. Doesn't the NXing order go through an automated execution system?
When I traded I did get price improvement on NX orders. Not sure if that is still the case today. In fact I remember how annoyed some traders use to be trying to hit a certain bid or offer to set stops off and they could never hit it.
Maverick, Sorry for my ignorance. I went over your posts about double prints and tried to see if I could identify it. How can you tell double prints by looking at the quote window. The quote window just gives you the last price, bid and size. I cannot tell there are two prints with the same size by looking at the quote window. One more question. Do you use charts? I don't think there are rooms for 15 charts.
So I think I have to show which exchange the print appears, which exchanges for both bid and ask too. I didn't show the exchange in order to save space when I traded.