TD, You are wrong. The trades don't show up for 15 min, but when they do, the show when the trade was actually executed. Thus a trade at 4:05 will not show up on the screen until 4:20, but it will say 4:05.
The summary box (showing open, bid, ask, and last trade) will actually combine real and delayed numbers (each trade eseantially flashes by as the last trade twice, at real time when its executed, and then again 15 minutes later).
The trades before and after hours have a black background. After hours doesn't change the closing price, but it does cause the volume to go up. Yesterday, at 4:00 LGND's volume was less that 100,000 shares. It grew by the amount of the three trades listed. Those after hours trades (20 min) are always in line with the closing bid ask prices.
Occasionally trades go off before the open and are also reflected in the volume in the morning before the open.
This morning is a good example. 1400 shares traded this morning at 8:03:30 (and it just showed up on the screen). Most quote servers will now show a volume of 1400 for LGND although the price of 13 1/2 won't be shown (just yesterday's close of 13 5/8).
Check it out:
quote.com
will show the 1400 share trade as well as its price of 13 1/2. The volume in the summary box is 1400, but the bid and ask listed are from last night's close.
If you look at:
fast.quote.com
you will also see last night's closing info, but the volume is listed at 1400, reflecting the trade this morning at 8:03:30.
This morning's bid and ask just showed up. It is listed at 8:14, but dhowed up on the screen 15 minutes later. It shows last night's numbers, suggesting that there is another 10,000 share buyer waiting in the wings (bid is again listed as 13 3/8 with a size of 10,000). |
