Actually, There are no "Pits" on the NYSE floor, The Crowd gathers @ the Specialist Post. A prenegotiated institutional trade still must be Bid/Offered out loud, and will get broken up if there are market orders or part gets given up to satisfy the book. I just figured I would throw in my .02!
Actually I communicate with my brokers via Instant Message - I just cut and copied my entire conversation into the post. I trade on a Proprietary basis.
Do you know if it's possible for a retail customer at a daytrading firm to do business with his own independent floor broker? Thanks
Today's worthy floor broker call was on ECA. I don't have the exact logs of my IM becasue my computer shut off midday and didn't save the IM logs. But basically i was asking him about what was going on in ECA when it was ripping up from $52- $55 he told there were only 2 instutions buying - finally from $53.50-$54.95 the broker told me that DOT orders were responsible for the last leg up - i started seeing the voume thinning out on the upside so i got short after I saw that the offer stopped getting hit - as soon as i got short it tanked for 3 points. I took my profits @ around 51.90-- then as it started to trade between $53 and $52 range, i got short a little becaus he said big sell orders are coming in. Next thing it gapped down 2 points and traded down another 1 and 1/2 point. This was one of my best trades ever - sorry no log of the conversation this time - will resume next time.
I asked (9:34:24 AM): ACS? Update #1 (9:35:34 AM): acs; .40 top on 25k is weeden , .50 low on 30k is scattered short sellers Update #2@(9:36:23 AM): acs; merrill working 25k to buy market order Update #3 @(9:38:33 AM): acs; weeden is a .83 top buyer of 5k, .90 low on 5k is scattered system shorties Next stock i asked about was CAT (me)(9:44:05 AM): CAT? Update #1@(9:45:48 AM): cat; credit lyoniss is buying thru the system,firstboston and spear leeds selling Update #2@ (9:46:02 AM): fbc sold 30k @.56 (9:46:15 AM): keeps reloading with lots of 30ish I got short CAT today and i made on ACS on the longside - will keep you posted
ME (10:27:21 AM): COF? Update #1 @(10:29:12 AM): cof, ubs, lb,opco, bs buying Update #2@(10:31:27 AM): buyers At this point COF was very extended up and showed $75.75 offer when the last price was $75.18 - knowing that there were buyers at that exact second i watched the print which printed lower than the midway point between the bid and the offer on a very very extended 2 and 5 minutes chart - thr print seemed large enough to look like an exhaustation clean up print - and i was confident that it wasn't a long since it printed very close to the bid after running up alot and showing an offer that was spread up much higher - so i got short as much as i could thru ECN"s and rode the wave down almost a point. Continuation of CAT : Update @(10:42:37 AM): cat; cis is a .25 low on 25k , merill is buying along with bear (ME)(10:56:19 AM): are the buyerstill buying in CAT? Update @ (10:59:24 AM): checking Update@ (11:00:23 AM): cat; the bear buyer leaves 10k to buy Update @(11:00:37 AM): morgan stanly sold stock not here now
pretty much on target - it's also all about how you understand and interpert the info that they are giving to you. Overall comes in very handy.