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

To: tom pope who wrote (2870)	12/19/1998 7:52:00 PM
From: Nazbuster	Respond to of 7382

Tom, I would think, with the sophistication of the ARCA strategy, that the software would have a "trace" function so the developers could monitor the "attempts" at dividing the order and debug the process. Perhaps Jerry could set up your account to monitor an order and show the internal routing, time lags, successes and failures, to better understand the poor execution...

To: tom pope who wrote (2870)	12/19/1998 9:40:00 PM
From: Sword	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7382

Tom: I looked at your trade on the time and sales. What happened to you had nothing to do with poor execution on the part of the ARCA algorithm or system. It had to do with a large order being placed and executed nearly simultaneously with yours. The best bid did actually tick down to 24 1/2 in response to this slew of sell orders that were suddenly executed according the the record between 11:14 and 11:15. I can actually pick out most of your executions. They don't look bad to me at all given the rules and the situation. Remember, the MM's have 30 seconds to execute a Selectnet order. While they consider your offer they can be accumulating other offers, some quite large before deciding to execute and refreshing their bid. Within seconds of your order being placed the bid size decreased to 100 shares from the 1000 that you saw. The MM's obviously had these large orders coming in. Under such circumstances, it is doubtful that you would be filled at your expected price. Allow me to render some advice based on long experience in using these tools. You need to take control of the situation! Don't just let ARCA operate alone. "Teleoperate" it by overriding its useful and quite powerful features when needed. ARCA market orders are really nothing other than a "smart" limit order. The price is set by the algorithm and sent over selectnet limit price that you can see on the LV II screen. When the market moves away from you, cancel the order yourself. You need to do this because ARCA will cancel and resubmit too slowly. It does this after 30 seconds. In the meantime, all kinds of action is taking place potentially at prices away from your offer. An interesting situation that I often experience is a bid showing up on ISLD higher than my ARCA offer before the ARCA order executes. The MM being preferenced by the Selectnet ARCA order just bides his time. I can often cancel my ARCA (Selectnet) order and execute on ISLD instead. You need to be nimble to do this and set up your order entry screen to allow you to make quick changes like this but RT II is quite flexible and can accomodate this. Remember, ARCA is an "intellegent trader" that uses ECNs and Selectnet as necessary. It can even use its own internal ECN, TNTO when appropriate. But you can override everything it does by canceling and selecting your own desired ECN or Selectnet preference whenever you want. Finally, I wanted to thank Funk for his excellent posts on this thread. I have appreciated his contributions immensely and respect his trading skills greatly. Regards to you, -Sword