The opening cross would have happened at 1 single price. The other trades that occurred between 72.49 and 73.48 would have either been on ECNs or on the NYSE later in that opening minute.
It is unfortunate that the cross occurred at the bottom end of the range but that is only partly due to your trade.
The open is a very volatile time to trade. Obviously if the specialist finds there are lots of sellers at the open he will open the stock down as much as he can get away with and step in and take the buy side of the trade. Your objective should be to make sure that your order is so small relative to the total volume being crossed at the open that it wonât significantly affect which side the specialist decides to profit from. I would imagine that if your order represented 13.5% of the cross volume then you will on average have impacted the price by about 0.1%. You got unlucky on that trade as there were probably many other sell trades, but I am sure if you check out all your past trades you will have benefited from a buy imbalance many times.
I have entered thousands of MOO orders. I have had some great fills where I have bought at the absolute bottom of the day and some terrible fills when a minute after my order has been crossed the price has fallen 5% or more. If you are going to trade at the open then you are just going to have to accept this random volatility and be reassured by monitoring your trades that on average you are only having minimal impact on the price.
The best thing you can do is to see whether you miss out on much profit by delaying your order till later in the day. Many of my MOO orders move the price >0.1%, but I am happy to pay this slippage as I will miss out on more than 0.1% of profit if I delay my entry.
It is unfortunate that the cross occurred at the bottom end of the range but that is only partly due to your trade.
The open is a very volatile time to trade. Obviously if the specialist finds there are lots of sellers at the open he will open the stock down as much as he can get away with and step in and take the buy side of the trade. Your objective should be to make sure that your order is so small relative to the total volume being crossed at the open that it wonât significantly affect which side the specialist decides to profit from. I would imagine that if your order represented 13.5% of the cross volume then you will on average have impacted the price by about 0.1%. You got unlucky on that trade as there were probably many other sell trades, but I am sure if you check out all your past trades you will have benefited from a buy imbalance many times.
I have entered thousands of MOO orders. I have had some great fills where I have bought at the absolute bottom of the day and some terrible fills when a minute after my order has been crossed the price has fallen 5% or more. If you are going to trade at the open then you are just going to have to accept this random volatility and be reassured by monitoring your trades that on average you are only having minimal impact on the price.
The best thing you can do is to see whether you miss out on much profit by delaying your order till later in the day. Many of my MOO orders move the price >0.1%, but I am happy to pay this slippage as I will miss out on more than 0.1% of profit if I delay my entry.
