jimford,
personally I haven't seen any problems with speciliasts,
Sure they will jerk you around sometimes,
but what else is there to do? No buy orders, You and a few other traders are there throwing in 500-1000 share lots.
Who else is there to buy/sell your shares? Specialists, So they play around with the price a bit, its not like the shares are going anywhere with your 500-1000 share buy order.
The key is knowing when there is a real buyer, then these jerk arounds won't happen.
You are un-informed on the process which makes you feel you are being victimized,
When I believe almost any decent trader will tell you, theres no such thing as victimized , Only no liquidity and bad fills.
A specialist won't fill you 500 shares and then let you profit 50 cents off that for no reason. The only time when he does it is because he has to, when theres 20 other orders also ready to buy, He has nothing else to do, BUT to turn up the price because of increase of demand.
He's not there to give you free money..
You will find 99% of the time when they jerk you around on price,
Stop trading and look @ the stock when the market closes @ 4:00 .
99% of the time the stock probably would have stayed stagnat mainly because there was no "real" demand. Just you , some specialists, and maybe some other traders and maybe one retail 200 share lot buyer
Now how do you think a price would budge with a demand like that? You ain't getting jerked around, You are just playing in a sandbox full of piss and think hershey syrup might suddenly burst out from the sandbox floor. Its not going to happen.
Thats it.