In perhaps one of my most questionable moves ever, I took leave of the safe and secure world (for me) of Nasdaq and entered the uncharted (literally - Don 
) domain of listed stocks.
I was tempted by the potential of OO orders, since I already don't place my first trade until about 9:45. While I haven't been able to place an OO orders (I'm not a pro firm yet), I have been watching listed action steadily for the past week. As yet, I cannot seem to make head or tail of the action. Nevertheless, I thought perhaps if I place some live trades my head would make sense of the game a little more.
After three days of getting chopped up I am totally intrigued as to how traders make money on listed stocks. My short term observations are these:
- the action is VERY slow
- getting 20c feels like a monumental victory
- the spreads totally throw me off
- Orders take forever to execute (not to mention cancels)
- I find it very difficult to play "tight defense" as the specialist (to my untrained eyes) prints trades all over the place
- Getting short is next to impossible (without bullets I guess)
That last point is my most troubling. It basically means that you will HAVE to restrict yourself to playing only a few stocks that you then set yourself up with conversions or bullets for. Otherwise you are basically limited to playing one side of the market.
Also, the importance of sticking with only one or two stocks while learning to "tape read" is obvious. My question is, is the skill of tape reading, once one is sufficiently skilled in it, transferrable to other stocks? Or do you have to "learn" them aswell?
) domain of listed stocks. I was tempted by the potential of OO orders, since I already don't place my first trade until about 9:45. While I haven't been able to place an OO orders (I'm not a pro firm yet), I have been watching listed action steadily for the past week. As yet, I cannot seem to make head or tail of the action. Nevertheless, I thought perhaps if I place some live trades my head would make sense of the game a little more.
After three days of getting chopped up I am totally intrigued as to how traders make money on listed stocks. My short term observations are these:
- the action is VERY slow
- getting 20c feels like a monumental victory
- the spreads totally throw me off
- Orders take forever to execute (not to mention cancels)
- I find it very difficult to play "tight defense" as the specialist (to my untrained eyes) prints trades all over the place
- Getting short is next to impossible (without bullets I guess)
That last point is my most troubling. It basically means that you will HAVE to restrict yourself to playing only a few stocks that you then set yourself up with conversions or bullets for. Otherwise you are basically limited to playing one side of the market.
Also, the importance of sticking with only one or two stocks while learning to "tape read" is obvious. My question is, is the skill of tape reading, once one is sufficiently skilled in it, transferrable to other stocks? Or do you have to "learn" them aswell?