Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Technical Analysis - Beginners -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: keith massey who wrote (10766)	10/2/1999 3:37:00 PM
From: Dave O.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12039

< In what situation can't the buy and sell orders of a customers be matched on the NASDAQ > Keith, Lots of things can happen based on my understanding. First, a MM might have the necessary number of shares in his inventory so he could print a trade directly to a customer. Second, he could have a sell order at the same price as where you or I want to buy. In this case I'm not sure if he prints it twice or once on the sell/buy. Third, if you or I want to buy at market price he may go and bid, trying to get hit and then sell at current market to make the spread. Fourth, what I've seen often, is the double prints on limit orders. I want to buy ABC at "x" and the MM has no shares in inventory. He needs to bid at "x" and when he gets hit by another MM or an ECN his buy is recorded as one trade. Then he turns around and sells them to you or I to complete the transaction. Perhaps he needs to show that the transaction was completed from his inventory since there's the payment for order flow for so many discount brokerages. I saw this double counting back when I traded for a friend and always bought with limit orders and could see time and sales and the prints would be almost simultaneous. I see a similar thing with apparent institutional orders, where a MM takes in a lot of shares, often the only guy on the bid. And after some period of time I'd see a print for 25K, 50K or 100K shares at the current ask, then perhaps a repeat of the process. I assume he wants to print the larger order and make the spread in case the ask were to start declining where he couldn't print above the price he was buying the shares he had built up. Make any sense? Dave