P2, This is not to doubt your reasoning, and given the size you play what you say makes sense. I'm just surprised you risked that much in THER, a stock that had only been in existence for 14 days when you played it. That's not even enough time to establish a paltry 20day vol ma. A couple of days before you played it THER only traded 77K, then 105K shares. That's thin. Even when volume blipped momentarily above 500K for two days the stock still didn't move much. Seems awful risky, particularly as you say in a Nasdaq stock.
I'd agree with Hitman re MWD - it looks like it should be a nice intraday stock to trade until you try... a good specialist (most of them?) will treat you surprisingly fairly. Price improvement is entirely normal (just get used to waiting up to 2 minutes for an execution ) . However there are exceptions, and MWD was quite nasty when i tried it. Farrell is good at explaining in detail how NYSE works. coops
Vis-a-vis Farrell's strategies, they no longer work in this market. His explanations are primarily based on two NYSE strategies: 1) scalping for 1/16's on illiquid stocks 2) lift and place sort trades where you are essentially following institutional footprints and getting filled on the ask before the specialist lifts (being a bidder on behalf of an institution). Farrell has conceded (on his website) that the efficacy of his techniques has been diminished very significantly since the advent of decimalisation. In my humble opinion, the only intraday NYSE strategy which has a hope in hell of working (for the moderately capitalised trader) is the strategy espoused by Hitman i.e. sector trading... but 1) you need to be a GREAT tape reader to do that 2) you will often go through spells of being at the mercy of very narrow intraday ranges, so it is important to know when not to trade. Point 2) point obviously also applies to intraday Nasdaq trading.
candletrader is absolutely correct about Farrell's startegy only being useful in the old pre decimal days...... I mentioned him in reference to his descriptions of NYSE trading - in particular explaining the bid/ask spread. He goes to great lengths to drum this in, it's very repetitive and i didn't particularly like his writing style (fwiw). It is very basic, but is not covered elsewhere quite so extensively. good luck coops
magma, i agree with you that it was maybe wrong to be that big, but i don't watch moving averages or anything else, I trade lots of ipos on the second day, look at ath as an example, as soon as it broke out, I got long for a quickie point.i figured it would be the same here. Guess not. No more nas for short term
P2, still got the "No PVN" sticker on your monitor? Did you see that capitulation? You must be back in it by now? ~EC
GATrader: Liked what you said except I don't believe the specialist was serious by telling you: "He said that there is a queue and they can only see the 1st 30 orders." What if I send 35 orders, all BELOW bid, is he going to fill me first even there is other better bid after my order because he "can only see the 1st 30 orders"?... then I can halt the stock then.. The real difference between Listed and Naz is how we feel about "precision trading" via ECNs on Nas, we can in and out (on liquid stocks) with penny precision, and that is exactly what most naz trader (include me) looking for- scalping .3 to 1pt on intraday basis, and this also the reason that make the new listed trader feel horrible because the spread/fill time are so different...my idea is, when I trade listed, I am looking bigger reward on a better trend with bigger slippage in a slower market. Hopefully, someday, more people use ARCA and ISLAND to trade listed. Good Luck
I used to trade NAS exclusively, but started trading NYSE almost exclusively a month or two ago. I still trade NAS but mostly NYSE. Hitman's post was very informative and really points to his experience in tape reading. I disagree with those, including Hitman, as to not trading MWD or MER. I trade them all the time, including others in the XBD & the BKX, and haven't had the same problems. They are certainly tradeable if you learn to; it's often a matter of adapting your style. Every specialist works their stock in their own way, so it's often a matter of learning how a stock/sector trades. Not only do you have to go into the stock with your overall trading style but with a knowledge of how the stock "plays". The trick is to learn when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. I'll admit that I get shaken out, but not as often as I hang on for the ride.
Hi Lone hand: I have to verify with people who worked on the floor. But it does make sense that there is a queue because think about this scenario. A stock is being offered at $50 100,000 shares. how many times do you see it starting to trade there and here I am trying to buy it putting in a bid at 50.20. In spite of my higher bid, I still am behind the queue of orders not to mention the floor brokers that the specialist has to satisfy. The specialist can't put you ahead of the line because of your higher bid else everyone will do it which leaves him hanging if the sell order does'nt get fully satisfied. While I am shaky on the exact algorithm that he or the DOT uses, time/price priority has always been the feature of the auction market. Once I get in touch with the right people I will post a better explanation. Thanks for your insight though. If you hear otherwise from others, please post so I can be informed better. Maybe this way I can work my DOT better.
By the way. If you enter 30 orders below the current bid and there are not limit orders or market orders to fill you and he does'nt want to sell you from his own inventory, he'll put you in the book and move on to the next order who might have a higher bid or lower offer and so on. So you would'nt "halt" or affect the stock.