Quote from Bob111:
there is will be no proof.it's just my personal observations.i prefer to keep it private..the stocks that i trade,when i enter\exit etc.
but it is what it is..i have my own home made software(not sophisticated at all) that allow me to buy\sell large basket of stocks. typically-i prefer to open and close all positions at once. in my soft i have 3 options-close at last,close at current bid(worse case scenario) and place an order current ask(in case of closing long position). like i said-my positions are very small,no large orders. 100-200-300 shares.my PnL in this soft displayed at last,and worst case scenario. 2-3 years ago-if i press "close all at last" button-mean that my buy and sell orders prices will be based on last price-i got 75% filled immediately and rest-i adjust and exit manually. at the end i typically ended up somewhere in the middle between PnL at last and worse case scenario PnL. so-if PnL based on Last was 1000$ and PnL based on worst case scenario(where you buy at ask and sell at bid) is 800$. my total PnL after comm and spread would be around 900..this is how it was for many years..now..in this year almost every single time i send my orders to close the positions at last price-i got filled instantly for about 30% and rest of my orders just stays unfilled. i have to unload them manually. after i've done that-my PnL would be typically BELOW worst case scenario level at the time,when i press my "close all positions" button. even if i press close at worse case-i will be filled on around 50% of positions. the rest will be unfilled. because "they" are able to pull off their offers BEFORE my order reach the exchange. or "they" will step in and buy those shares displayed(once again)-BEFORE my order reach the exchange. in any situation-most of of the time i ended up with unfilled order(which i placed at the best price at that time and i'm pretty sure i'm only a buyer) and higher spread.
end of story.
there is nothing illegal going on, it's just many little technical advantages somebody has and we(retail guys) for whatever reason are not eligible for it.
how is this fair, if somebody can place 5 decimal points order and we are not?
how is this fair,if we can't even see those orders,because the data displayed by our brokers is rounded to 2 decimal points?
what kind of BS is that? why it's so fucking hard for SEC to stop this? it's can be done overnight. 2 decimal point for everyone. pretty fucking plain and simple.