Talking Technicals

[doublereed]

Originally Posted by ArkhamB

"Every stock in NYSE has at least one specialist controlling it. This specialist uses his/her opinion to arrange opening/closing and stock daily ,weekly, monthly range. They have powers also to halt trading any stock.Many people do not believe but it is true and fact. Specialist trade their own account a well. Whenever there is too sale/buy order that cant be met..that is excess. The specialist must acquire this in his own account...Do you expect the specialsit to lose money? Never"

The statement is at least mostly true. I'm not sure about them having to use their own account to fill orders but I would assume they choose to use their own account to fill orders because they know where they want price to go next. They then collect the spread by acting as a market maker. AND if you put in a market order... they'll buy it at one price, take a couple cents for themselves, THEN your brokerage will take a couple cents for themselves, THEN you get the stock that's "filled" 10 cents above where the price action is. AND if you use a limit order they just won't fill it until they want the price to go against you then they'll fill it and price will instantly go below where you bought in at. Fun huh?

The NYSE is one of the most manipulated markets there is. One rule that I'd recommend for beginners is to trade Nasdaq stocks only because the trades are automatically routed electronically. There is some manipulation in the index but not as much because the manipulator has to put his/her money at risk in order to do it.

It's all a game to "them."

[ArkhamB]

Originally Posted by doublereed

AND if you put in a market order... they'll buy it at one price, take a couple cents for themselves, THEN your brokerage will take a couple cents for themselves, THEN you get the stock that's "filled" 10 cents above where the price action is. AND if you use a limit order they just won't fill it until they want the price to go against you then they'll fill it and price will instantly go below where you bought in at.

How are they doing this if the order is filled almost instantly? I thought that most trades were just computerized/electronic?

[doublereed]

I don't remember the exact numbers but I'm pretty sure that if you're order takes 1 second or more to fill they ARE padding it or doing something behind the scenes .31-.99 seconds and they're PROBABLY padding your order, and instant-.3 seconds is ideal (probably not padded) for executions.

Talk to your broker and see if they have an execution time gaurantee for market orders. These numbers were for direct access trading (DAT), if you're using the web browser to trade it's almost always at risk for padding or some kind of manipulation.

[doublereed]

This is from Scottrade so these users are good to go. (.3 seconds there)

http://www.scottrade.com/online_trad...tion_speed.asp

Trade Execution Speed


Scottrade continuously strives to provide our customers with a fast and efficient execution experience. Trade execution speed is an important component of overall execution quality. Execution speed is measured from the time Scottrade routes your order to the marketplace until the time your order is executed at the trading center. Execution speed does not include the time it takes for the order to be reported back to Scottrade and be displayed to you in the "Today's Completed Orders" section of our Web site or another Scottrade online trading platform.