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Strategies & Market Trends : From the Trading Desk -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve goldman who wrote (2902)	4/21/1998 7:16:00 PM
From: snoman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4969

I would like to know how prices are set on the NASDAQ. For example, the price for XCIT fluctuated wildly between 73 and 76 this morning between about 9:30 and 11:00 (check the intraday graph on Yahoo). This type of price movement seems common on many of the tech stocks I trade, although this is one of the more extreme cases. What would make the price do that? Also, I notice when I enter an order to trade (I use Ameritrade BTW), a bid price and an ask price are shown. I have two options when placing an order: market or limit. The market costs a little less, but I don't know for sure what price I am going to get. It seems with market orders I always pay just above the ask price and receive just below the bid price when buying and selling. Is someone taking a cut in the middle? And one more question: (I have many questions about the stock market, I hope you don't become annoyed) I have been trading for only a few months, but one strategy I have found that seems to work well is to sit in cash, and wait for an opportunity such as XCIT this morning. I would have bought and sold XCIT many times between 9:30 and 11:00, however my brokerage was much to slow in responding. Any suggestions for a quicker response broker, or for that matter, this type of trading strategy?