You have got to be kidding me. You assume that everyone who buys a listed stock is a professional? NYSE is self-regulating in order to avoid government regulation. They can't then ignore their own self-regulation when its convenient. You can't have it both ways.
To the supporters of the specialist system, I commend you on your limitless capacity to trust your fellow man. I find your faith in human nature inspiring, especially when that fellow man is a stranger who effectively (although, perhaps, not technically) has discretion with your money by way of your trade orders, as well as an underlying conflict of interest. It is a testament to your good nature and I, for one, find it refreshing. Naive, perhaps, but refreshing. And although I, personally, will only be trading electronic markets, my thoughts will be with you. Regards, Thunderdog
You're actually right. What specialists do to day traders is small potatoes. Plus, I like the price improvement of NYSE as opposed to Naz. The horrible state of scalping now is mostly the amount of newbie scalpers and the lack of institutional volume. The specialists have been getting a little worse, but I can deal with them. While most posters here are bitching about their lousy fills, the real problem with specialists is not about day traders. Much bigger issues at hand, like the masses buying on propaganda (promoted by the same people in the power bracket with the specialists) just to get screwed cause the stock has long been priced in and controlled by NYSE & Gang. BlueHorseshoe already pointed out a book. I mentioned several times Richard Ney's "Wall Street Gang". When you trade NYSE, you start seeing what he talks about. I still remember when a measly 300,000 buyer came in during lunch and the specialist ripped up the stock about 2 points, just to have it drop over 3 right after. Scalpers are complaining about cents while this buyer, be it a fund, pension or huge retail client, just lost about a mil. I thought the specialist's job was to make sure people dont get fills like that. The mafia racket of NYSE just has got to go. Let it be worse with MMs for the intra-day, but at least you know that MMs aren't exactly living it up regardless unlike these scumbags. If it is going to be worse, it would be because of more natural competition, kinda like it is now. The "risk" of the specialist is BS. You have to be a complete braindead retard not to make money as one. Between absolute price control, inside circle info, practically unlimited fund and credit, how can you even call this a fair and orderly market..
Do we really want to cast aside the traditions of our ancestors, who gathered at Broad and Wall, in the bar of the Merc, on fabled "top step" of the T-bond pit? Are we so cold, so obsessed with our new god of economic efficiency, is saving a couple of pennies for some piker so important? And, my friends, where in this brave new world will the fair Maria find to stand to deliver her breathless morning commentary? In a server farm in north Jersey? Is that the kind of world we want to pass down to our children?
No I don't assume that (though I suspect that most amatuers use an agent such as a mutual fund). This is a forum for active traders. I assumed I was dealing with professionals. Professionals generally agree to arbitration because they're supposed to know what they are doing. Amateur investors would be like the unwitting grandmother in my example. The worst slippage I ever experienced was $2 per share. In the recent past it's probably averaged a dime to a quarter. How much damage can that do to the casual trader, someone who trades 4 or so times a year? I'm not saying it is ideal; only that for non-professional investors, it probably isn't a significant cost of doing business.
Its not about professional or amateur, its about stealing. Its like an accountant who works for a large company with a lot of employees who steals a few pennies from each employee every paycheck. The fact that it is small amounts does not mitigate the crime.
funny hearing the talking heads on cnbc discussing "pennying" marie bart. learned a new term and keeps throwing it out.
AAA!!!! you are welcome to keep on using smoke signals and pigeon mail to trade, or at maximum upgrade to calling in your orders and wait for confirm till eod arguing for the shake of argument???
i trade listed stocks and don't have much of an issue. the problem isn't the specialist system if it's done the way it was desinged to. some specialist have gotten away from what they are required to do versus what they want to do. in reality the spec system is no different than the ecn, except you have a person there acutally excuting the trades, and in some cases can be better than ecns, because they are required to provide a market if there isn't one. but like anything that invovles money, there are a few bad apples and because of that there needs to be some changes, i personally don't care either way what happens.