if Bill Clinton were an exchange he would be the NYSE. great marketing but a little slick around the rules.
Quote from downtickboy:
Well I don't necessarily think Naz is the only alternative. There are a lot of things that can be done to improve NYSE without turning into another nasdaq. I have not seen or heard anyone propose to exactly replicate nasdaq for the NYSE. Besides the logisitcs and support for doing that does not seem to be there.
Well I can compare specialist activities to MM. Not every MM acted criminally just like not every specialist is a bad apple either. However I think abuses occur everyday just like MM did. Frontrunning orders, freezing the book so trades can not be made, keeping the spread artifically wide etc. Actually a lot of those abuses sound like what the MM used to do by not answering selectnet orders and colluding to keep the spread wide. Maybe marketmakers no longer make much of a market anymore, but they used to be all about inventory control too. Remember all the talk about the AXE in a stock (which still occurs at times) who basically controlled the stocks kind of like a specialist but with less information. They will support a stocks just like a specialist will when an order imbalance comes in because of news and he gaps it down a pt or 2.
About the efficient market I think futures would be considered an efficient and wide open trading market without much interference. There are plenty of people who make money in that environment. Making money on NYSE was not really what I was getting at when I first posted. I was commenting on how someone will say that the NYSE is best in it present form just because they learned how to make money on a seemingly obvious corrupt and bias trading system. Traders that adapt will be able to make money regardless of the market structure or market environment. My point was that standard by which rules, regulation, and markets should be judged should not be based on whether you can currently make money with it. What happens if you suddenly can't make money anymore because continued abuses escalate or for whatever other reason. Would that change your mind at all about whether a market structure should be setup where one person can see all the orders, penny a large buyers limit order because he knows he has something to lean on, fail to match natural buyers and sellers because he can profit from it by including himself, or a host of other conflicts of interest?
Quote from Mecro:
It's just really funny to see traders post their support for CALPERS just because they can't trade with the specialists. Look, none of us have any say in this because NYSE in fact provides us an advantage if you can grasp it. If you want to defend mom & pop investors, then I understand and I support you. But CALPERS is not doing that. I do not buy any of this self promotion crap and public relations stunt. Only ones who are gonna benefit from this lawsuit are the heads of CALPERS and their lawyers.
Futures is actually a good model for a fair and unbiased market. But most NYSE stocks could never trade like that without a central inventory controller. Some could and I would expect them to start trying out trading just like futures.
Quote from C Robinson:
in a couple of weeks i will be starting my 7th year of trading nyse stocks. today is the first day i am seriously considering leaving the market.
when the news first came out about grasso and his pay package i was encouraged. i thought maybe they would get someone from the outside that would bring a little fairness back into the exchange. today, we learn that an executive from the parent company of one of the biggest specialist firms has been named as the replacement.....to the tune of $4 million a year.
i have watched the implementation of decimals single handedly give the specialist a license to steal. penny jumping seems to be just as prevalent now than when it was first initiated. Donaldson, a former exchange employee has done nothing but give lip service to "looking into the matter." i will not be holding my breath.
i remember when i was a naive beginner and i heard that slk didn't really want our(day traders) business. my first reaction was, "those snobs, are they that rich???" little did i realize that they didn't want us competing for their proprietary profits.
similarly to downtick, i too am profitable. but today as i traded 50,000 shares and broke even net, i kept focusing on why aren't these guys just letting the stocks trade??? are they that slow that they can't keep up with the order flow. do they need every last advantage that is already stacked in their favor? my god, i can not even imagine how much money would be possible to make if they just let the stocks trade. i would guess that 40% to 50% of the time they were freezing their books with 1 x 1 or were in report mode.
well i think that i have had enough.....i'm getting too old to have to fight someone everyday that is suppose to have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure i get the best execution. with friends like those ...you know the saying.
as i watch the final prints of the afternoon session, i can only shake my head and wonder how these allstar specialist would perform on this side of the screen. i have heard in the past that the specialist that have attempted to trade like the rest of us, have done worse than pitiful.
i have listened to one former specialist laughingly recall how he taught a new specialist the "tricks" that had made him so much money. i have watched good traders one by one , wash out of this business. personally i don't think it has anything to do with being a bear market.
i am glad to see someone step up to the plate as calpers is doing but i am afraid it is too late. this case will probably drag on for a few years and then they might be forced to make some small changes. i feel i have waited too long as it is.
i would welcome any suggestions from those that have made the jump successfully to other markets. please feel free to pm me, all suggestions are appreciated.
Quote from Mecro:
Stop fighting the specialist and the tape.