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Strategies & Market Trends : DAYTRADING Fundamentals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Matthew L. Jones who wrote (4637)	10/4/1999 12:02:00 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

Matt, No, please. Let me clarify, not only as a professional trader but as someone VERY familiar, for years, with Instinet: that's just plain wrong. Maybe someone was a little overzealous in trying to "make the sale"? ;) Nasdaq Level III and the Instinet book are two entirely different animals. However, if someone refers to one as the other, well...there's nothing anyone can do about that. One could as easily refer to a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit as a horse-drawn golden chariot(!), but that doesn't make it so. Maybe it's that a little colloquialism has taken on a meaning, however erroneous, of its' own. Nasdaq Level III is the exact same as Level II, but gives the ability to uptick and downtick bids and offers. It is available on EWN II (formerly known as NWII) or, some market makers have proprietary front ends. This is what market makers use to create interdealer markets and adjust their inventory. For a picture, see Chapter 4, pages 4 and 10 of the Nasdaq Trader Manual. Look it up at wwww.nasdaqtrader.com if you want more info on NASDAQ Level III. The Instinet book, whether live (execution capable) or on a "slave" (not "dead"!) terminal basis is, again, only available to subscriber BD's or institutions. Yes, there are some slave terminals on the floor of the options exchanges, kept there by the entities who have membership in that area. This is nothing more or less than an Instinet flip screen or a particular issue's Instinet book that someone is either not executing on (keyboard not attached) or electronically emulating somehow. That, again, is not a "product" that Instinet sells, and certainly not to retail individuals. It's an Instinet subcribing BD or institution merely re-broadcasting their subscription at an advantageous point (ie, rather than in the office, on the floor where their pit traders, specialists, and order book officials are). Indeed, one of the items regarding having an Instinet subscription is the mandate that such only be displayed in an OSJ location, of which an exchange floor or trading floor would qualify and be acceptible, so even if the Instinet book for flip page were a marketed product, daytraders couldn't have one in their home. Since it is not an actual product of Instinet, $250/month is someone's created price. It is noteworthy to mention that Instinet would likely cast a very jaundiced eye on the "resale" of their proprietary information. Hope this clarifies your understandable confusion, whether with regard to the substance or terminology. LPS5