specialists used to only enter the market when they needed to create a smooth market, now they enter it to flip orders, which usually detains one order while waiting for its opposite.
how often have you seen this, size is presented on the offer, the bid is hit, then a new bid is seen, higher than the offer which caused the first bid to get hit. is this an accident, of course not.
there ought to be a thorough investigation, fines, and jail terms. they have corrupted what used to be the best trading market available anywhere. part of the problem is that there have been so many mergers and buyouts, remember competition.
This is more likely a MM trick, and the exact thing that caused the Billion $$ fine on the Nasdaq. If someone is foolish enough to use market orders (not saying that's what you did)...then they shouldn't be trading. If you don't get "price improvement" on many of your orders, then something else is wrong. I find that at least 25% of my limit orders get price improvement....and zero get filled at a worse price (obviously, because they cannot give you a bad price on a limit order). To everyone: Don't use market orders. Don
WELL PUT Axe!! Let's not "polarize" this issue by having such strong opinions....heck, everyone, trade where you like....Just Make Money and "live long and prosper!"... Don
Any traders who are calling for the NYSE to be reformed so it can be more efficient don't get it. As traders we are here to pick up the scraps. What scraps are left when a market is totally efficient? Go trade the emini's if that's your game. Some examples of lost strategies would be OPG's, MOC's, envelopes and others. Why oh why would any trader want an efficient market?!?! Bring back Grasso!
Yes! Yes! My full endorsement of JMartinez, Dustin, Don Bright and Axehawk. Avoid the route of destroying the most famous system of the most famous stock market on earth, the NYSE, the bellwether of world capitalism. And may I suggest it is a cornucopia of wealth and opportunity for traders. Don't give it up!
Each of you, and the MMs, survive only by pilfering pennies from everyone else's retirement funds. And you can only do it due to an anachronistic and flawed trading process at the NYSE. That is not trading - it is petty theft. Count your days. As for cornucopias well, if you pinch for pennies that is what you end up getting. Pennies.