Quote from Vinny Gigante:
I was bidding $22.50 for a stock that was trading at $23. I was bidding for about an hour. It then trades down down $22.55, and it's my bid. And then it trades as low as $22.52, and I'm never filled! And now it's back to $23. Crazy!?!
I can't stand the way this happens almost daily!
Vinny
ps. merry x-mas!
Quote from Tea:
If the bid was 22.52 and the ask was 22.60 when it traded below your limit buy price, then its possible you would not be filled as the NYSE traditional order system doesn't let you split the bid-ask like on Nasdaq i.e. the specialist does not have to show your 22.50 limit as the best price (ask) as it would be shown on Nasdaq.
If this was the case, then the problem is the closed nature of the NYSE specialist system and not the increment size.
Perhaps someone a little more knowledgeable about NYSE order entry than me can comment on this?
Typos on my part - what I meant to say was:
If the bid was 22.52 and the ask was 22.60 when it traded below your limit buy price, then its possible you would not be filled as the NYSE traditional order system doesn't let you split the bid-ask like on Nasdaq i.e. the specialist does not have to show your 22.55 limit as the best bid as it would be shown on Nasdaq.
The way I interpreted Vinnys post was that he started with a buy limit of 22.50 and then he changed it to 22.55 as he says
"It then trades down down $22.55, and it's my bid".
So on Nasdaq, he would have been filled at 22.55 as the bid had moved down to 22.52 and it traded there (unless it was some 3rd party trade or error).
I'm not saying that you can not split the bid-ask on NYSE, but its not like on Nasdaq where if you have the best shown bid and someone wants to sell - then they would take your bid before selling at a lower price. No specialist approval needed.
Net-net, as I said before, I think Vinny's problem has to do with the closed nature of the NYSE specialist system and how they control the shown bid-ask rather than decimals or increments.
IMHO
