I know the feeling, happens to me all the time and why I try to only use marketable limits. But it's amazing the contortions he'll go through to find a way to fill your marketable limit order at the limit price. Where's my "fair and orderly market"? Where's my "price improvement"? You take the good with bad at the NYSE. Praetorian says NYSE is fair and I think he has a point when you're trading size. But for the lowly scalpers like myself trying to eek out a dime or a quarter, the SPECs are so blatantly criminal it's funny. Sometimes when it serves his purpose, I've even seen my own orders filled out of sync with the order queue. The specialist just doesn't give a damn what the rules are.
the specialist has to take 100 shares at the printed quote. then he can change his bid/offer. he is generally backing away in this instance but is not breaking any rules as longs as he takes 100 shares before refreshing his quote. if he is showing more than 100 shares you can use limit nx (direct+) for an automatic fill. if you cant nx the stock try testing him with limit orders. sometimes unfortunately market orders are necessary.
if the specialist is showing 100 shares he needn't fill you there -- he might be 'rebidding.' In fact, no matter what he's showing, he has anywhere from 30 to 120 seconds (depending on who you talk to) to manage you order as he pleases (unless it's an NX order, which he will not intereact with. However, any NX order that is not filled, either because of competition for the fill or quote change, is sent to the book and ceases to be an NX order).
are you sure? i thought this was there rule. at least it was about 5 years ago. either way it doesn't matter they will usually do what they want anyway regardless of the rules. best bet is to learn to read the tape and familiarize yourself with each specialist.
Has anyone else noticed in the past couple of weeks that the specialist are showing a lot of the 1's and printing thousands of shares or refreshing the size over and over when they do show size so you never get a good feeling that they are ever done with the order? I feel like I am hitting island hidden orders or market maker reserve orders like on nasdaq.
Im sure the SPEC's will attempt to "hide their hand" as much as possible, even if it includes stretching the rules as long as they dont attract too much heat. Fortunately, I can trade blind peace axeman
Yes, they have been doing that a lot. Over the past few years I've noticed that they do this when the volume is light.
Please forgive me as I am kind of a newbie, but how would one go about requesting a price correction from the specialist and what are the rules (i.e. time limits, share size, etc.)? Thanks, Fatman