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Pastimes : Stock-Picking Challenge -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chartseer who wrote (2308)	3/6/2001 2:00:42 PM
From: Jon Tara	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2402

That's just not true: "closing quotes are always spread out beyond the real market". First of all, the bid/ask IS the "real market"! What other market is there? There is the best price that somebody will pay. And there is the best price that somebody will sell for. That IS "the real market"! Additionally, there is no rational reason for spreads to increase at the close. In fact, there is every reason for them to NARROW, as a surge or orders come into the market at the close, increasing competition and narrowing the spread. While "the specialist" does, indeed control the spread in listed stocks AT TIMES, he does so only when there are no limit orders near the market. The specialist can't prevent natural orders from being displayed. It's an even more ludicrous proposition on NASDAQ, where you have a dozen or market-makers on each stock (and in popular stocks, as many as 100), plus the ECNs. They would all have to conspire to make this happen. One thing that this contest has shown is the lack of basic education about the market here. I think that SI should use what they have learned to start a program to educate their users with the basics of market mechanics.