Dan,
Reading the mm's is an art vs. science. I have 1/4 of my trading screen open to a level 2 and time & sales window for xico. After many hours of watching the mm movement and how the trades are hitting, I can get a "feel" for what is going on. And when you see some new players like TUCK and NEED, arrive, it can be significant.
First of all, these mm's are for the most part only working customer orders. So lets say a customer of NEED wants to buy 50K xico. Usually the customer will issue some limits like "buy 50K up to 11 1/2". NEED will then start buying stock as quitely as they can or they will call around to other mm's for a block. If they can find a block seller, they will negotiate the price and you will then see the 50K prints. Most, if not all, the block trades you see are these pre negotiated trades vs. the lifting of offers or hitting of bids.
So lets say that NEED couldn't find a block seller and was able to buy only 30k shares before the stock jumped above 11 1/2. What they can now do is offer some of the 30k they bought, hoping that nobody lifts them but rather other sellers offer lower than them, thus giving the impression of selling pressure. If the stock starts dropping and the bids are weak, they might even start hitting some of the bids in order to drive the stock down. So maybe they have to sell some of the stock they picked up early in the morning at say 10 3/4 - 11 1/4 at say 11 5/8 to 11 3/8 to drive the stock back under 11 1/2, so they can complete the customer order.
It is my opinion that TUCK and/or NEED are positioning their preferred clients in the stock prior to picking up coverage.
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