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Strategies & Market Trends : Joe Copia's daytrades/investments and thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Copia who wrote (21842)	3/15/2000 12:26:00 PM
From: Dave Gore	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25711

Thanks for your perspective, Joe. I tend to agree that most of the time, MM's do a pretty good job and it is not easy to make an orderly market. And yes, I was pointing out that they are overwhelmed with buying at times. However, from personal experience I did not get a fill for 2 days through two different brokerage houses on a security I was trying to buy ABOVE the ask. Yet when I asked my broker to route through Herzog and Mayer and Schweitzer (sp?) the orders went through in less than a hour. The floor manager I spoke to at Discover said that they were looking into NITE's execution time, which lately had been getting worse. I also noticed really slow fills on stocks lately that has relatively small volume (i.e. FVSN) a couple weeks ago. So I am not trying to put forth a big conspiracy theory, but on the other hand, I am hearing some troubling things from others too. It appears it is not all volume related.

To: Joe Copia who wrote (21842)	3/15/2000 1:12:00 PM
From: Eric Fader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25711

Joe - I've been explaining that same thing repeatedly to people on some other SI threads since the unprecedented OTC-BB volumes began in January, and I discuss it almost daily with my own broker/MM. The only embellishment I would make is that when a MM locks or crosses the market, I don't think he particularly cares whether it alerts the other MM who's not answering his phone. Usually, it's just that the other MMs are trading around the sleepy guy as though he's not there at all, so we see things like bid .45, offered at .42, last at .47 (the best offer, not counting the inattentive .42 guy). -Eric

To: Joe Copia who wrote (21842)	3/18/2000 12:32:00 PM
From: Theo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25711

"MM's are not filling orders very quickly or at all..." Obviously not an isolated event, nor, limited in scope- Sprintcar posted this on another thread: SEC CHIEF WARNS OF PRICE PROBLEMS 1 EXCHANGE FAILED TO PROPERLY SHOW SOME LIMIT ORDERS By Bill Barnhart Tribune Markets Columnist March 17, 2000 On the heaviest day ever in New York Stock Exchange trading, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission warned Thursday that investors are not always being shown the best prices when they buy and sell. Arthur Levitt said that one stock exchange, which he declined to name, had failed to properly display one in six of the so-called limit orders coming to the exchange from investors. He said the practice is under investigation. Limit orders, which have become increasingly popular among individual investors, are orders to buy or sell securities at a specific price, as opposed to an order to buy or sell at the prevailing market price. "In far too many cases, limit orders are being mishandled by market intermediaries," Levitt said. "I am deeply troubled by this apparent disregard for customer orders and systematic competition." SEC sources indicated that the stock exchange with lax enforcement of limit order display rules was one of the four regional exchanges. Paul O'Kelly, executive vice president at the Chicago Stock Exchange, said his exchange was not the target of the SEC probe. "I can tell you with certainty it isn't us," he said. The other regional exchanges are in Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Levitt said the SEC would issue a report in the next 45 days probing market compliance with limit order display rules in equity and options markets. In a speech at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, Levitt called on the nation's stock exchanges, securities dealers and electronic communication networks to open their books of limit orders fully to the public. All orders to buy and sell, not just orders at the prevailing best price, should be revealed, he said. Levitt urged all dealers and exchanges receiving limit orders to fashion a system in which orders would be quickly displayed publicly. In the worst case, a dealer or exchange specialist hides a limit order that improves on the prevailing price in an attempt to trade ahead of the order. Such practices were the subject of sweeping SEC regulatory action in 1997. "Given the plain importance of limit orders to investor confidence and market efficiency, you would expect that ensuring their visibility would be an unyielding imperative of our marketplace," Levitt said. "But information gathered this past year by SEC examiners indicates just the opposite." Levitt said the SEC's pending requirement that stock exchange quote prices in decimals rather than fractions based on one-eighth of a dollar magnify the need for fully open limit order books. The change in price quotations is scheduled to begin July 3. On a related theme, Levitt called on the securities industry to create better links across proliferating stock exchanges, dealer networks and electronic communication networks. He said the current system linking markets in exchange-listed stocks and the SelectNet network of Nasdaq stocks were not performing adequately. "With today's unprecedented volumes and new demands, it's the obligation of every market institution to commit their resources first to technology--before marketing campaigns or dealer benefits," he said.