as someone else said, know the stocks you are trading.... specialists can use this strategy against you b/c they know what traders are looking for... i.e. sometimes when the offer of say 20k gets taken out and you go long, he will show another 20k, maybe theyve got 100k to sell and they are jsut trying toget the large order filled and it won bouce at all... or right when it looks liek it will tank they drop the bid, let everyone sell into it, then take out the offer, run it up and make money off you when you frantically scramble to cover... its a big poker game out there
Anyone been around long enough to remember when there was an axe for each nasdaq stock? You watched for the axe and never faded him or that axe would be sticking in your head. Now it's all ecn's , plus nas, pce,size etc. Even the formerly all powerful nite is basically a nonfactor. In one aspect I suppose it's easier, as ecn bid/ask size is real. Still, I miss piggybacking on gsco.
I just started trading for a prop firm in florida a couple weeks ago. I am still in training and am starting to learn the basics of using the open book and playing the specialist. So a lot of what you have said about plus tick bids and minus tick bids I understand. However I want to learn as much as I can about reading the specialist and using the open book to make successful trades. Are there any books or videos that focus mainly on this type of strategy? We only trade NYSE stocks in my firm so I really need to know all the tricks of trading the open book because I start trading live in a few days, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks--