I think it is worse than it appears. I would bet good money that the MMs that are getting order flow have thier computers programmed to exploit orders like these. Something like: order(order#, StockID, Shares, Price, Market,limit) IF Market = .25 x .30 and order = market THEN buy Shares of StockID at market posttrade( at highest offer within order receipt time + 60 seconds) End if It is best to have orders routed to an ECN that autofills against the inside market. I have put trades through TD Waterhouse that have had executions well away from the inside market, but I complain every time and they almost always make an adjustment.
dg' I had no idea it could work that way. I trade mostly NYSE and Ameritrade doesn't offer routing for NYSE stocks. I have accounts at Cyber and IB. Maybe I better take a closer look. Any advice you have to offer is greatly appreciated. Btw, excellent journal.
Nite will trade against your order with their own execution system for NYSE stocks. Most online brokers route orders to Nite because they pay the most for order flow. You get a better fill by sending your order directly to the NYSE. Trading thin NYSE stocks is like walking through a mine field.
If I were a stock trader I would set up a method to either email or postal mail the SEC or NASD, whom ever had jurisdiction, with times and price prints every time this happened. If it happened every day or many times a day they would never stop hearing from me. I'd probably send the whole bunch of info on bad fills to my Congressman and Senator once a month too just to really try to stir the pot. If EVERYONE who gets screwed complains to the right people something eventually will get done about it. Little ol' me once made some complaints about the FTC and the credit bureaus and had everybody there chasing their tails for a while. It works if you hit the right cord or persons. Make you motto on these crooks, "Don't Get Mad, Get Even." Wally
Oh, I thought you meant Nasdaq orders. I was not applying the case I illustrated to specialists, although you know now that they front run for their own accounts. Could be that Ameritrade is misreporting the trade. Make sure that Ameritrade isn't sending your listed orders to another exchange. They get kickbacks for routing listed orders to hte other exchanges outside NYSE. TD Waterhouse sent some of my listed orders to some backwater exchange like Cincinatti and the stock traded through the price 3 times in both directions and my order still wasn't filled. Those jackasses. thx Whoops, you said they sent them to Nite. Listed should go directly to NYSE. Drop Ameritrade for listed then.
Whether or not this means much I don't know. But for me it is a bit of good news. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?guid={1C883D33-DB6A-4D3B-8F31-D7EDFC95FF1F} Over the last few months Ameritrade has been routing there orders less and less to NITE. I know I complained vociferously regarding NITE's executions. It was too obvious.
a couple years ago, the WSJ ran a piece on how NITE would be able to make guaranteed coin each morning because it would match up hits buy and sell orders (that were sent to it from ameritrade, etrade, etc.), frontrun these orders in the pre-market, then sell/ buy to their customers, and sometimes reverse things when the large imbalances were cleaned up. any idea if this is related?
From the article it would seem that front-running is the main issue. I actually complained to NITE last year and of course was assured such was not the case. At that time I complained to the SEC using an online form. Previously, the sanctions handed down made it worthwhile for NITE to continue the practice. Hopefully that will not be the case this time.
Have recently been attempting to shift from emins (globex) to stocks with IB. Just want to say I am burning with these lag, lag, lag NYSE market order fills that is if you get filled, I find myself often canceling the order because price is runing away and they won't fill you At The Market. These times remind me of ideas like the people have the right to bear _____. Yes I admit it, I am from Berkeley.