AMEX order execution

what is a quote, if it is not firm?

the amex is making a regular practice of pulling his bid after i send a mktable limit at that price. it's a way of teasing out people's hands without honoring his market.

question, is there no obligation for the amex spec to fill marketable limits at his quoted bid?

i know it's been said 1000 times, but it's blatant theft

are there any rules to defend us in this regard?
 
Maybe related... how fast is your quote feed?


Quote from Avid_Consumer:

what is a quote, if it is not firm?

the amex is making a regular practice of pulling his bid after i send a mktable limit at that price. it's a way of teasing out people's hands without honoring his market.

question, is there no obligation for the amex spec to fill marketable limits at his quoted bid?

i know it's been said 1000 times, but it's blatant theft

are there any rules to defend us in this regard?
More...
 
i've got IB, and my equipment is all current and working. this is also an extremely slow and thin stock

i've been trading ishares for a few weeks now and am getting some feel for the specs repetitious tactics. I'd say about once every 1-2 days, he will dishonor his quote when I send a mktable limit at his price for <= his quoted size. it sits for 2 or more seconds, no other prints go off, then he drops his bid dramatically.

just had a very good conversation with IBs trade desk about it. once the order is cancelled, recourse is lost, so gotta leave the order in the mkt if you want to call in and try and get it filled
 
Yikes. That sucks. Why not trade on ARCA?

Quote from Avid_Consumer:

i've got IB, and my equipment is all current and working. this is also an extremely slow and thin stock

i've been trading ishares for a few weeks now and am getting some feel for the specs repetitious tactics. I'd say about once every 1-2 days, he will dishonor his quote when I send a mktable limit at his price for <= his quoted size. it sits for 2 or more seconds, no other prints go off, then he drops his bid dramatically.

just had a very good conversation with IBs trade desk about it. once the order is cancelled, recourse is lost, so gotta leave the order in the mkt if you want to call in and try and get it filled
More...
 
some of the time i can split his spread on arca and get part of the position filled, or catch the random straggler making the right mkt, but there's just not enough liquidity in this stock to get those fills most of the time
 
Quote from Avid_Consumer:

i've got IB, and my equipment is all current and working. this is also an extremely slow and thin stock

i've been trading ishares for a few weeks now and am getting some feel for the specs repetitious tactics. I'd say about once every 1-2 days, he will dishonor his quote when I send a mktable limit at his price for <= his quoted size. it sits for 2 or more seconds, no other prints go off, then he drops his bid dramatically.

just had a very good conversation with IBs trade desk about it. once the order is cancelled, recourse is lost, so gotta leave the order in the mkt if you want to call in and try and get it filled
More...
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And if your broker calls the AMEX help desk on your behalf the answer will be : The specialists was in the process of updating his quote when your order was sent.

And when you attemp to cancel your order the AMEX spec will sit on it if the market starts moving agaist you....and then fill you at a now losing trade
 
Quote from Nordic:

____________________________________________
And if your broker calls the AMEX help desk on your behalf the answer will be : The specialists was in the process of updating his quote when your order was sent.

And when you attemp to cancel your order the AMEX spec will sit on it if the market starts moving agaist you....and then fill you at a now losing trade
More...

totally, i'm sure they're as slippery as their bullshit quotes, although i think i read something about SEC investigating this. i've got a handful of other symbols i can use to mitigate that fill scenario, and can use my other systems to gauge and mitigate whiplash. it's no silver bullet, but i'll post the results next time he dishonors his quote

good news about barclays taking ishares off the amex

in terms of him being in the process of updating his quote, maybe i'm being idealistic here, but shouldn't his posted bid stand until he can get his new one in like the rest of the electronic trading world... if we could change our minds after we got filled and say 'oh sorry, i was in the process of updating my price'... wouldn't even approximate ethical conduct. the specs should have to submit to a matching engine and eliminate this unethical gray area
 
He is, nevertheless, entitled to do that if he really is in the process of recalculating it, dealing with a floor broker, etc. If he does it repeatedly for no reason, and they catch him doing it, though, he'll get busted. While IB's trade desk is focused on getting you filled, and they are correct that you can't cancel the order and still expect to talk about it with AMEX, your motivation can be different - to bust the guy. Keep your audit trails and get T&S (including quotes) for the stock and times in question, and put together a complaint with the info to AMEX's regulatory body. They should be able to watch the guy and nail him or verify that he is, indeed, engaged in a negotiation with a floor broker, recalculating his quote based on movement in the underlyings, etc. at the time your order is sent.

I can certainly see a scenario in which you are trying to make a market in an ETF whose component stocks are quite illiquid, and the spec for one of the higher-percentage components gaps his bid down. Instead of just auto-gapping down with him, you might (arguably correctly) think it more fair and orderly to wait a moment and see where he prints and where his bid ends up before adjusting your quote. Yes, it would be nice if there were a "non-firm" button he could hit while doing this.
 
your comments are highly appreciated. overall this is a learning experience, and those do sound like legitimate conditions under which he may not post immediate fills under the current rules. in the scenario you describe, personally i think i would rather see him gap his bid down too though. if it's not firm, i don't wanna see it because it just leads the retail guy to tip his hand. i would like to believe it's legitimate market making, but it happens with enough frequency to seem unfair

reading on the amex site last night it looks like their autoexecution system is being implemented 'in the first half of 2006'. i looked on amex.com for information regarding the firm quote rule that the SEC was investigating their adherence to around 2003, but didn't turn up anything that wasn't dense legaleze.

in any case, the specialist dishonored his quote on two orders very promptly this morning. i called IB and hedged in a different instrument. before it could be worked out, the market turned around and i got the fills. ...
 
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