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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: blankmind who wrote (32485)	1/29/1998 1:46:00 PM
From: username	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 61433

<lvl2 and figure asnd price> Gary, respectfully, if I may jump in; Blankmind, looking at a Lv2 printout is kinda like looking at one frame of a motion picture...impossible to make precise predictions. Gary can see the "ebb and flow" of the bids and asks; it's been described to me as a very sophisticated poker game. The people that are trading (the people that are on the other end of the computers on Level 2), are very sophisticated, and are not showing their hands to the other traders, let alone to you. Sometimes if you're good, (I'm talking about the traders on the line), you can tell what another MM is going to do. Many times it's a game of "follow the leader"; the "big" firms being the leaders, Goldman being considered Mr. Large. It's also been described to me as "Nintendo for adults". One MM may be on the bid as a "head fake" and jump on the ask, and vice versa. Things can change radically within seconds. Each MM has a trader for each stock, and each trader is a human being with whatever emotional makeup he has. It's just very very difficult to try and make sense of it if you are looking at one frame.