What are you talking about? Obviously, you did not read the beginning of the thread since I said that my purposes for this research were to see if there are any underlying patterns in the securities being traded by each specialist. Like, say if they are the specialist for a particular group of cos. and that group behaves a certain way on certain days or at certain hours. Nobody's hoping to go after these people for any other reason, at least not me.
you're on to something but you need to figure out the post # as someone mentioned earlier. there is an advantage that can be had, especially with one firm in particular and the way that they handle dot orders. good luck.
Yes there are patterns but don't forget that there are also the big institutional traders/programs, plus many other traders that have patterns and also give the tape. In general, it seems like sectors trade similiarly as a whole and also random sectors seem to trade the same as others probably due to the same specialist. Usually you can spot out these similarities by the "best price" fills you get when you try to get out of the stock. I've actually thought about doing the same a while back, but I think it makes more sense to watch tapes of random listed and see what appeals to YOU. The same specialist may trade 2 stocks differently just because of the other players involved in it day to day.
you're on to something but you need to figure out the post # as someone mentioned earlier. there is an advantage that can be had, especially with one firm in particular and the way that they handle dot orders. good luck.
For $100 per month, the NYSE sells information called "Post & Panel Locations", which, the NYSE says, is "available at approximately 5:30 am each trading day. The file contains Symbol, Company Name, CUSIP, Specialist information and the Post and Panel locations for all NYSE stocks." You can check it out at: http://www.nysedata.com/info/productDetail.asp?dpbID=1&dptID=0