The tide is turning for the specialists!!!

I gotta agree with BlueHorseshoe. As a former stock broker, commodites broker and RIA I don't see any solution short of the NYSE converting to some sort of electronic trading mechanism in regimented fazes over the next 3 to 8 years. Old habits die hard but die they must.

Wally

 

Well, BlueHorseshoe, now ain't you got a pretty use of semantics.

A trading profit on NYSE stocks or indices is pilfering, theft and penny pinching. And a trading loss is giving back pennies to retirement funds, huh?

And of course if you are receiving a salary - and you may not because I don't know - but if you are, is that a bribe for your services? I mean you would be getting money, right?

So the specialist system goes as a new gravy train comes into the station, now ain't that a work of wonder?

Well there you go .. the mind of a genius at work!

 

Funny, LTCM (pre-greed days) made like $3B pinching penny after penny after penny after.....

 

I don't know if you who think specialists are obsolete have thought about this yet, but don't you remember what happens in those "superior" electronic markets every time there is a slight order imbalance? I won't go into ISLD anymore, because those idiots would never be able to handle the volume the NYSE does, but globex, being a little more serious, is still an excellent example why we need specialists: Every few weeks there is a "clerical error" (sure, clerical error) and someone enters a buy market order for 10000 contracts instead of 100. [More likely than not it is intentional to fathom market depth, but we'll leave that for another thread.] Anyhoo, what does globex do? They execute the whole order, bringing the price up a hundred points, as if they had never heard of conditional instructions in computer programming, and then, sometimes 20 minutes later, sometimes in the afternoon, they bust all trades above some arbitrary level. If I had to manage a couple of billion dollars, I would be happy to pay the NYSE specialist for not giving me that infantile "spike first, bust later" crap.

 

Sure. I drew different lessons from LTCM, but more power to you.

I'll stand by a statement I made recently here. Anyone who tries to defend the NYSE's specialist system is either stupid or dishonest. Some have replied that they 'like' the NYSE, and I am sure many do, including Mr. Bright. There is a lot to like about the exchange. That doesn't make the specialist system any more or less defensible.

Sooner or later the specialist system will be replaced, as it should be. I don't think it is imminent, and I'm not holding my breathe, but market forces are relentless, and the outcome is inevitable.

Then again, nobody thought the Berlin Wall would fall until it had already fallen ... hmmmm. I can hear Mr. Bogle's voice now, ala Ronald Reagan: " Mr. Reed, Tear Down This Wall!"

 

I haven't seen anyone here say the system is honest or fair. But what in life is? This is a business...we are here to make money.

What I learned from LTCM is that if your expertise is picking up free pennies, don't be a hero and try to pick up quarters.

 

First, there is no system that is honest or fair. I would put people that want to abolish the specialist system in two camps, those that have their own agenda (owners of ecns) or complete and total amateurs.

shneed

 

Agreed. And the sad part is that these two camps overlap in mutual fund managers.

 

I also have done a scientific study like shneed and have found that those who are for the specialist system are either: Al Queda terrorists or serial farm animal pedophiles.

 

seems like forces beyond the control or influence of the specialists are forcing market realities upon them.....