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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (41735)	12/31/1998 12:56:00 PM
From: accountclosed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

I usually react against the idea that specialists/market makers/traders are crooks. Leaps are thinly traded. Traders are businesspeople like the rest of us. The real thing they are probably doing is hoping for trade they can make money off of. Although that is what you implied, I don't believe it is a crooked thing. They don't want to be short options any more than the rest of us do. They are constantly looking to go neutral by either creating conversions or reversals. Your trade is undoubtedly a peg for a hoped for covered call order. i.e. some investor sells a leap call which a trader buys, sells you your put so he has a synthetic long. then turns around and shorts the stock, presto has a reversal = market neutral. and all of this has to have enough edge for the trader to make a profit. they're in business too. i believe there are exchange regulations that they have to accept market orders for up to 10 options without moving the ask (or bid in the case of you selling an option).

To: Tommaso who wrote (41735)	12/31/1998 5:46:00 PM
From: dr. z	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

I have found that sometimes when I have placed a bid which I think is reasonable, but it feels like the option maker is playing games, then I will put in an order to cancel; it is not uncommon that as my broker is putting in the cancellation order, I find that I get filled. Another option might be to just put in a market order bid for the 2 1/16 and cancel your prior order?