Price improvement

[traider]

Well he did make markets for a living you pompous clown.

He is the one who started being aggressive for no rational reason at all. Go try and improve the best bids and asks if you think it's easy money

 

[Wheezooo]

Back in the day where MM's all traded together in one pit, cutting someone's market by a tick could get you punched in the face. Definitely didn't go over well. But today I don't necessarily agree. We are now living in an age of HFT buying order flow in stock and literally trading .0001 below a current offer. In the option market almost all markets are generated by a computer. Beating a current market will generally cause the market to tighten as the computers join you and the competition will cause tighter markets, which is good for the customer. Also in certain single listed products, such as the SPXW, being first to change the market as a customer will give you priority (although no penny quotes here).

I guess I see a difference in trying to beat the computer program with a penny improvement, but can still see your point.

"Back in the day where MM's all traded together in one pit, cutting someone's market by a tick could get you punched in the face. Definitely didn't go over well."

Yep, you'd have a bad day.

I also think you are mixing equities with options and I just don't see them the same way... A penny improvement on a 2-3 cent wide market, fair enough. A penny improvement on one side of a ten cent wide market, for options, in my book = you're a dick. If it's a product where you also 'steal' priority, that just ups the level of dickheadedness exponentially.

"In the option market almost all markets are generated by a computer."

The 'no humans involved,' is a nice deviation, but one could argue, all markets have been generated by a computer since the days I was running sheets off a 128 bit Sparc station. Someone is behind that computer. The only thing that has changed is the automation of execution. It still requires someones decision tree and someone is ultimately responsible for that position. Really, how is it any different than CRT, who had good upstairs traders (the programmers) and those crappy sheet reading floor traders (the computer).

I'll just agree to disagree. I think it's bad form and bad etiquette, always has been, and for me, always will be. I'd NEVER do it.

 

[Wheezooo]

He is the one who started being aggressive for no rational reason at all. Go try and improve the best bids and asks if you think it's easy money

It is rational, as FSU stated, if you did that not having a computer to hide behind, someone would very likely punch you in the face. That's a fairly strong reaction to an action.

...and go make a freakin two sided market for someone. Then have someone wait for you to give it, and cheese into one side of it by a tick. (which you yourself are almost certainly better offered than you're showing) I promise, you'd blow a fucking gasket!