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Biotech / Medical : ONXX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer who wrote (454)	8/3/2000 12:03:42 PM
From: Mama Bear	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 810

David, you can't tell who the counter party is, only who is nominally on one side or the other. I say nominally because MM's have been known to try to disguise their true intentions by sitting on the bid to make it look like they're buying, and using an ECN on the offer to sell shares. If only it were so simple as to see GSCO on the bid and to know that they're buying, or to be able to say that because GSCO is not on ONXX's screen today that they're not participating. Just FYI, one 'takes' the offer, and 'hits' the bid. Regards, Barb

To: Elmer who wrote (454)	8/3/2000 12:30:44 PM
From: tom pope	Respond to of 810

OT David, All you see on L2 is, for the MM's, each firm's best bid or best ask. So you might see on one side, taking NITE as an example: NITE 18 10(size of bid) and on the other NITE 18 1/2 1(same thing) You don't know whether NITE is actually bidding more than 1000 shares,he may be holding a huge amount in reserve - working a large customer order. If you see a trade at 18 and NITE goes away from the best bid, you know then that that was the total size of the order NITE was working. You NEVER know who sold the shares to NITE, or who bought when a trade goes thru at the offer. Also you don't see NITE's whole book, only his best bid and best offer at any one time. With some ECN's like ISLD you can see the whole book. It's even on their web site, very useful AH to gauge demand. No big deal, but the terminology is "hit the bid" and "take the offer".