Most of the people here on the board try to trade NYSE stocks . WHY ????? ( yes you can trade with INCA or Island ,but in most stocks there is no liquidity ) If you are trading Nyse stocks you depend heavily on the specialist --so it is much more comprehensible and easier to trade Nashdaq stocks . Please somebody tell me only one advantage ( maybe except for the open ) to trade NYSE stocks .
This is the advantage. Look at BMY on thursday. I took 25k shares at about 30.15 avg. I just entered 5k market orders to buy them all. I wasn't too concerned about price. I sold them all an hour later in the mid 31 region for 32k in gains. I could NEVER have done that on the nasdaq. The nasdaq is a flawed system. If I had wanted out of BMY. I knew for a fact that there was at least 5m bid at 30. I could have just hit a limit order at 30 for all 25k and been filled at about 30.06 or something on all of them. My risk was about 3k for the trade/reward about 30k. That situation just never exists on the nasd. If It had started to move fast. There was no way out for more than like 3-5k. I couldn't soes that much cause all mm's go 100 bid. I couldn't hit ecn's cause there are 100 guys with faster trigger fingers who would either hit those bids, or pull them before I could nail them. My risk would be almost a point. That's why I trade almost only nyse.
My hat goes off to anyone who can trade the specialist stocks -- after 2 years of trading I got so feed up with the whole specialist system that now I pretty much do 98% nasdaq - I wish everything was Nasdaq - specialists have a true license to steal - Ever try to trade breaking news on a NYSE stock - good luck ! I really feel that traders who focus on stocks traded by specialists as opposed to nasdaqs or ETF's on ECN's -- which are immediate electronic matching systems - are making their jobs much tougher than it has to be.
The specialist legally must make a fair market. I NEVER trade breaking news. Trust me, the SPecialist is getting screwed with his order flow too. Otherwise, he's way fairer. I normally trade stocks that trade under 200k shares a day. And I usually take positions of 10-20k shares at a time. You just can't do that on the nasd. It's hopeless. I don't mind if they steal from me some if I get liquidity. I know that no matter how illiquid it is, if I give them a free 5k, and hit the whole number bid, they'll always let me out of my whole position. I like that comfort, it doesn't exist on the nas.
NYSE/Nasdaq ? I think it really depends on the trader and what he's trying to do. If you try to go against the specialist you may lose in the long run I agree. If you try to trade news too, but you don't have to. Trading NYSE is very profitable with several strategies (not the open only). A very profitable style is to trade WITH the specialist, it is not that easy to get, but really saying that he's there to screw you shows that you don't get what the game is about on NYSE. Why almost prop firms are trading NYSE ? It's very profitable that's why. I bet before the open strategy was explained here you would not believe it was possible at all. It's just the tip of the iceberg. Praetorian also shows you how it's done. It's OK to say you can make money on Nasdaq, and great for you if you do. But don't assume you can't make money on NYSE because you did not find how. Anyway, each night I pray a little asking NYSE never to get rid of the specialist system, ever. tntneo PS : nice one P2. your style will always impress me.
Your method of trading is that in which I feel most comfortable. Your level however, is my aspiration. You must be extremely confident when you decide to open a position. If you don't mind me asking, do you use any type of scanning method to find your plays and are you discretionary in trading style? Not looking for anything detailed if your reluctant to say, just an overall. Thanks.
Per your quote about the NYSE, How did you know there was a bid for 5M at 30, am I missing something here? Incidentally that was a fab buy-sell you did. WOW,
Just a note. There are advantages to NYSE stocks that include liquidity, centralized market place and price improvement. In our firm , we have traders who trade both. This year, the NYSE traders are doing much better. NYSE direct(auto-ex for 1099 shares or less) and ISLD, give NYSE the advantage of a faster execution. Many times we buy on NYSE direct and sell on the specialist book for price improvement. If you are used to trading NASDAQ, the NYSE seems like you are trading slow motion. My advice, trade either NYSE or NASDAQ since they are two different markets and trade differently. It is very hard to trade NYSE and NASDAQ at the same time. Gene Weissman Lieber & Weissman Sec., L.L.C. gweissman@stocktrade.net
MM can play games and Specialists can play games - but on stocks with lower liquidity (say some 100k shares vs. some millions a day) maybe less games are played because they are not watched so closely by hundreds of daytraders - just a theory I wonder if Hitman would like to return to NASDAQ since he is now doing well with NYSE but in his early journals he often wished he would be able to trade NASDAQ stocks ...
<i>If you are used to trading NASDAQ, the NYSE seems like you are trading slow motion.</i> so very true