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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Dollar and Under Sleeper Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: grw5 who wrote (5759)	3/19/1998 4:09:00 AM
From: S. Southern	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8835

From Motley Fool Very well, now I have a follow-up question. What is the bid/ask size that I see on StreetSmart for stocks trading on the NYSE and ASE? On the Nasdaq, because there isn't one "specialist" balancing a book of orders, the "size" means almost nothing. It's relatively impossible to know what is being offered out there. The only insight that this may give relative to the Nasdaq is the number of market makers on the inside quote. This gets a little sticky to follow, so don't be upset [other Fools] if you haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about : ) Ya see, on the Nasdaq, when a market maker "sits" on the bid or the offer, it means that they are willing to buy or sell "at least" 1000 shares of the stock at the price they are "sitting at". Follow me so far? Problem is, they could be "good" for a lot more than 1000 shares, which goes back to what I said about not really knowing how many shares are for sale. The best a bid-ask size may tell you for OTC is how many market makers sit on the inside quote. The NYSE and other listed exchanges (Midwest, Boston, Pacific etc.) are a different story. Let's use this as an example: Bid 14 1/4 x Ask 14 1/2 37 x 90 <---- bid-ask size This means that at the current moment, 3700 shares are being "bid" for at 14 1/4 and 9000 shares are being "offered" at 14 1/2. In general, a larger ask size than a bid size means that in the very short term, there are more sellers than buyers and thus downward pressure on the stock. This could change in an instant though, so it isn't that helpful unless you're a market maker or very sophisticated trader. Certainly nothing I would use to make a buy-sell decision. But.... that's just one Fool's opinion.