Quote from Avid_Consumer:
thanks, i really appreciate your response. ok, i can definitely understand someone making a more competetive offer than mine which is sitting on arca, and them therefore becoming the nbbo. this actually happens quite frequently and before I know it, in the process of feeling for liquidity inside the nyse's wide spread, the stock and the spread have moved significantly lower as i would expect them to if the customer bids in his book truly did change (or can he do this discretionarily? are there conditions under which he can reflect a bid lower than what's actually in his book?).
in this specific situation though, i'm not seeing more competetive offers, i'm almost always seeing buys at my price trading on the nyse and the amex, and yes sometimes even higher which i understand to be a tradethrough. it's certainly frustrating to be the nbbo offer for 200 shares, and watch 1700 shares bought on nyse and amex at my selling price and higher without me getting filled. what's even more frustrating is that in almost every instance where i've improved his offer by sending my limit sell to nyse or amex directly, that flood of easy looking liquidity is never there.
i know it could be random supply and demand, or simply orders being routed directly to the specialists despite a better offer on arca. but after several weeks of experiencing this daily in all sorts of mkt conditions, buys, sells, entries, exits, on an etf without uptick rules... i have the distinct feeling that the liquidity i can never seem to access is initiated by the specialist. it's almost always there when i compete, and almost never there when i try to play along
how do i prove that without documenting and launching a crusade? not sure. but it's a highly consistent behavior. my competetive offers on arca seem to generate a flood of buy liquidity to the specialist. maybe there's a simple explanation.
not sure if i'm routing through SDOT, I'm using IB's default and going direct to nyse, not via smart