Scanshift,
There are some cases where I would park the 119 3/8 bid with ISLD. Just to clarify, though it's not a bid below the market or an offer above the market. I'm always sticking these bids/offers INSIDE the inside market - so my bid appears just above the highest MM bid, or just below the lowest MM offer - so I become best bid/offer. This is how a lot of people trade on ISLD too of course, thus the constant "swarm" of ISLD bid/offers. Once you do this the terminology and order placement rationale becomes very obvious and natural.
ISLD does a lot more volume than ARCA, that's true. Probably reflects the relative state of development, and ISLD's ties to DATEK. When EGRP starts running their orders through ARCA, it will get a lot busier too. A lot of the ISLD volume is in very small orders.
The biggest advantage with ARCA is that you can use it to work larger orders, say 1,000-3,000 SH positions. ISLD works OK up to about 500SH. If you try to do larger you'll often (many times) end up with weird odd-lots and partial fills. With ARCA, as long as you get the order timing right and set the price correctly, it will be able to go out and work the order for you (as you know, it's a Selectnet preferencing engine) and drag in the fills a "peice at a time", all for one lot charge. It's great when it works, which I find is most of the time. If you try to do this using ISLD, you'll end up placing several orders and paying multiple ticket charges. |
