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Non-Tech : MB TRADING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tom pope who wrote (2342)	11/29/1998 4:03:00 PM
From: scanshift	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7382

The black hole of the Archipelago/Terra Nova ECN I take a couple days off to enjoy this beautiful weather in the midwest, and when I log on I see a post that I have an obsession with Terra Nova and Archipelago. I would call it more of a mission, than an obsession. I have clearly laid out a lot of useful information for the clients of Terra Nova and their branch offices, and for that I have received numerous thanks in public and private posts except for one individual named Mack whose disgusting behavior should get him kicked off SI permanently. A number of things have been pointed out to me in private posts that I was unaware of, and when I become aware of those I have brought them to the attention of the thread (i.e. JPR and their $10 rate with Real Tick and they also clear Southwest). Plus I have shared with you a tremendous amount of personal first hand knowledge I have since I was one of the principals that started Terra Nova, found Townsend for my SCANSHIFT project www.scanshift.com, along with many other pieces that have resulted in the Archipelago ECN. These are clearly laid out in earlier posts. It was pointed out to me that there is a site for the Island ECN at isld.com that shows the volume traded and that in the top right hand corner you can click on a button to watch the Island book? That looks interesting. As far as comparing Archipelago (also referred to as the Terra Nova ECN) versus the Island, they were both started in early 1997, but notice that Archipelago does not have its own web page. One may ask why? The reason being is that Townsend is very concerned about it becoming widely known that they are a 50% owner of Archipelago with Terra Nova. Now that I have set about to getting the word out, they should put up a page and show what Archipelago's daily volume is. Many people have posted in public and private comments about the problems of ARCA. I think the problem with using ARCA in simple language, is that 1: Your order goes to the "LOW DAILY VOLUME" Archipelago ECN first, where it can be crossed with either another order, whether that order is already on the books or one that is generated for the proprietary trading account of Terra Nova (the trading is done at Terra Nova but technically the account header may not well have Terra Nova or Jerry Putnam on the top of it). Jerry would have made a good vice president for Clinton. Please see my earlier posts as to where all the proprietary trading orders that Terra Nova did with the RAES options trades were parked; they were parked in Jerry's wife's account. Anyway, let's say for argument sake that Terra Nova does not trade against your order at all! They just try and cross it against another order in their ECN. Given the low volume that Archipelago does, the odds are very high that order is going to have to leave Archipelago and then go on to another ECN anyway. Where will it most likely get filled? It will get filled at the Island ECN, which probably does ten (10) times the volume of Archipelago. Thus, a number of traders have pointed out that they go direct to Island from the start and do not have to deal with that time delay stress. If they cannot get it filled in the Island, than they look at other alternatives. All Terra Nova branch offices along with Terra Nova themselves are trying to not make the volume figures of Archipelago widely known. Again, where?? is the web site showing what Archipelago does in volume every day like ISLAND. Six months from now, hopefully every trader, not just the ones with a lot of volume and common sense under their belt, will realize that using ARCA to send order flow where the Archipelago ECN can get a first shot at it will be waste of time. That waste of time could cost them the opportunity!!! to get filled on an alternative ECN, because the other ECN may well have been able to fill their order, but ten to 15 seconds of screwing around in Archipelago may have caused the other ECN order to be taken down by someone else during that ten to fifteen seconds.