the OFFER is lower than the BID

does anyone else see this in stocks from time to time?

eg. bid 90.07 - 90.03 ask

can this be exploited?

 

you're getting bad feeds.

 

There are very rare instances when this can occur.

An example can be when a stock trades on different exchanges (ECN's)

But usually it's indeed assumable that you have bad quotes.

 

I see it all the time and when the market is crossed the stock is still trading!

 

Bad quotes. From time to time, markets or ECN are lagging in their quotes. AMEX is the worst for that.

 

does that mean my internet connection is too slow, or is it IB or my processor?

i saw this morning in OIH (attached)

 

could be the ECN on offer and the specialist or
other exchange showing a stale bid

or vice versa ...

 

I actually hit some options that were pricing like this. It was SINA or SOHU during an extremely volatile open. The option prices were crossed. Made some nickels, then gave some back after one the exchanges stopped honoring their quotes. Learned a little anyway.

 

If its on a nasdaq stock, then 99% of the time its a stale quote. Any arb apportunities are quickly taken.

If its on a nyse stock, then the specialist probably hasn't updated his quote, and you can't execute off it anyways.

 

yeah, i can imagine the programs at traderbot have already taken care of this....