Originally posted by Don Bright
I just want to comment on the whole idea of "adding to liquidity"....Our traders (as most are) are taught to "initiate" trades by hitting bids and taking out offers, rather than to simply sit there and get whacked (or taken out) when the market turns.
I venture to say that less than 10% of all orders are completed this way (at least with our guys)....
Hello Don your guys trade listed stocks remember? I think I tried to bid a listed stock once.....yeah that worked well.
Originally posted by Don Bright
...but, as you know, DATEK has retail customers who (for the most part) are simply placing orders on the Island book...this is where the bulk of the orders come from.
I would venture to say that DATEK's lame retail customer base accounts for less than 10% of ISLD volume on a daily basis. Another example of Don's ignorance of the Naz market. Give me a break, you think that the lame Datek retail customer base is responsible for providing the "bulk" of the liqudity in the ISLD ECN!?
More importanly, with a decimalized one penny spread Naz market the line between passive and aggressive orders (posting bid vs. taking offer) is hard to distinguish. Often we go to post a bid at the inside only to get an instant fill becuase ISLD sellers were already crossing the market. Thus we were "adding" liquidity from the perspective of the L2 screen, but in fact our order actually takes liquidity from a (crossed) ISLD book.
And Don, what is happening more often than not in a Naz stock lacking significant momentum....it trades back and forth between the bid/offer. Answer this for me. When I am buying stock at a support level-where some traders are speculating that it will fail and others are speculating it will hold-why not bid out half my position for a better fill rather than just take the offer? Do your traders only trade breakouts when the stock is running already?
Let's see 30,000 shares a day times 220 active trading days times 30% of them that I get a penny better fill by bidding/ offering...hmm translates to almost $20,000 per year (not to mention the rebate if I in fact get it). Sounds worthwhile to me.
Your "90% of our trades are taking offers and hitting bids" is a foolish execution mentality in the current Naz market. Oh yeah you guys don't trade Naz stocks. So why are you commenting on this issue anyway?