Totalview a Scam & Question for eSignal

Dave,

Thanks again for your post and for keeping this thread alive. Especially with the new $5 incremental price for nonpros, I am glad to have the opportunity to clarify this important issue. Thanks also for your thorough explanation of the different windows you use and have available to you.

You indicated that “most multiple orders use SIZE.” It’s hard to generalize at that level. It definitely depends on the stock and also the particular moment in time, as well as what's going on in the market at the moment.

As to vendors that are integrating SM and non-SM quotes in TotalView, the changes to their screens would be as follows:

1. In cases where they aggregate depth (calculating the total amount of buy-side and sell-side depth) – they consider both SM and non-SM participants.
2. In cases where they list quotes themselves (in a quote montage, for example) – they reflect both SM and non-SM participants.

I'm going to try to attach a screenshot that shows what I've described. You'll notice that this particular screenshot has both several SIZE and several non-SIZE quotes.

Thanks again,
RandallH

 

Thanks Randall,

That was a good example screen cap. I could see the non-SM participants listed in the quote window, and that their volume was included in the (upper) depthview window.

In your example, the inside market had both SM and non-SM members. But the fact that non-SM members were appearing makes me expect that, even if the inside market was only non-SM members, that their price and volume would appear in both the quote and the depthview windows. So the inside market would always be seen in Totalview. Maybe you could confirm that?

In subsequent discussions with eSignal, I've learned that they intend to include the best bids and offers of the non-SM members into their version of Totalview, in not the next imminent release 7.5, but soon afterwards. And potentially eventually integrate the complete ECN books. Then the individual trader truly would have a complete picture of market liquidity (which I assume the MM's have now).

The only inequity I can think of then is the delay in some large trades being seen in Time and Sales. I assume Level 3 still exists, and that's how trades can be directly made between institutional traders, that don't need to be reported for some limited time? Do only the two people (the buyer and seller) know of this trade in advance of everyone else?

Maybe that last should be the subject of another thread. Thanks Randall for answering so well my original question.

Regards
dave z