Quote from Strategery:
I was thinking about playing with one of these yesterday. What kind of problems did you run into? I have never traded stocks like this. I see the mkt is like 5k to 10k up per price tier, did you buy the offer and there was nobody there to replenish? Were you faded?
Longhorns is partially correct. According to the "Exchanges" he mentioned the Pink Sheets states emphatically that quoted prices & sizes are not firm. However the BB states that according to their rules quotes & sizes are firm (talked with several people there to confirm this on multiple occassions). Let me state before my explanation that you can & should expect to lose every so often trading in these issues. I find the winners outnumber the losers by a large percentage. Also the person that started this thread I do not know and they are relatively new to ET. The ET poster KUKAMAN has on several occassions posted some very nice BB winners on these boards.
THE PROBLEM:
The problem with trading in these issues IMO comes down to one thing...Knight Trimark (NITE). They ARE the largest MM in many stocks and have almost full unmonitored authority to get away with whatever they want to do. The NASD & the SEC turn a blind eye to their activities. They pay for order flow from most BDs and they will not do a trade if they do not want to. I have offered to purchase above the inside quotes at NITE and they refused. I have also offered to sell below the inside bid and been refused. This is a clear violation of SEC rules.
On another thread I asked for help woth quotes on CWPC, that day I offered above the market and was refused. In that thread another trader suggested using GNET and I am now for many orders, but every once in awhile you must use NITE as they are THE market because of order flow. Even self clearing firms will send some orders to NITE.
These "Exchanges" are great places to trade IMO, have some extremely profitable businesses listed there, and could be improved immensely by reducing NITE in their role. One way to do this would be if every trader that has DART capability send orders away from NITE for about 90 days to 6 months. They would get the message (loss of income) and probably become more honorable in their business practices. BUT, alas I seriously doubt if even 10% of the traders would do this.
Bottom line....my profits in HYRF were lost to NITE in EYII
Hope this helps! If you need more info let me know.
