Quote from Avid_Consumer:
...as recently as today in a symbol that trades about once every 3-5 minutes (and far far less than that on nyse), i'll send an order to hit his nbbo bid, and 2-5 seconds after he receives me, he prints at that level and moves it down without filling.
It certainly does sound like front-running, but it's so obvious, it's hard to imagine someone thinking they could get away with it, so let's keep an open mind and try to find another explanation. The only logical one is that he's holding a marketable sell order that came in before you, possibly with time discretion to allow him to wait for a better bid to show up (is this possible?). What is the nature of the strategy? Is it possible that someone else is trading it? It would be instructional if you would provide the specifics so we can all look at the tape and see what happened.
It might also be good to forward a list of a few of these instances to your broker for an explanation from the NYSE, to which you are entitled. With an illiquid stock, there's not a lot of wiggle room to say "stock ahead" or "fast-market" and it would be good to hear the explanation.
initially it would happen without any print, then i started leaving my orders active and calling them in. since then it still happens, albeit with a print.
What do you mean by calling them in? Calling IB to call NYSE and ask for a fill? Are you definitely routing your order to NYSE (not SMART), and is it a straight LMT DAY order?
...as recently as today in a symbol that trades about once every 3-5 minutes (and far far less than that on nyse), i'll send an order to hit his nbbo bid, and 2-5 seconds after he receives me, he prints at that level and moves it down without filling.
It certainly does sound like front-running, but it's so obvious, it's hard to imagine someone thinking they could get away with it, so let's keep an open mind and try to find another explanation. The only logical one is that he's holding a marketable sell order that came in before you, possibly with time discretion to allow him to wait for a better bid to show up (is this possible?). What is the nature of the strategy? Is it possible that someone else is trading it? It would be instructional if you would provide the specifics so we can all look at the tape and see what happened.
It might also be good to forward a list of a few of these instances to your broker for an explanation from the NYSE, to which you are entitled. With an illiquid stock, there's not a lot of wiggle room to say "stock ahead" or "fast-market" and it would be good to hear the explanation.
initially it would happen without any print, then i started leaving my orders active and calling them in. since then it still happens, albeit with a print.
What do you mean by calling them in? Calling IB to call NYSE and ask for a fill? Are you definitely routing your order to NYSE (not SMART), and is it a straight LMT DAY order?