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Non-Tech : Tulipomania Blowoff Contest: Why and When will it end? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David M. Green who wrote (725)	1/15/1999 5:12:00 PM
From: KeepItSimple	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3543

To anyone who has noticed irregular (and unbelievably corrupt) pricing action on Amazon options, apparently there is a reason. Without making an announcement, the Amazon options MMs have been granted a special exemption to "disregard" the rules of the exchange. If you've been ripped off in the last few days, a few phone calls could end up getting this SOB fired and hopefully a few dollars back in your pocket. This was emailed to me but I cannot give the source. It is accurate from what I can tell. "1. Quote services provide consolidated quotes giving the best bid and best asked for an option. You need to enter a special symbol if you want a specific exchange. This means that the spread is not reflective of an individual exchange, but is a combination. Generally the primary exchange offers the best market, but this is NOT the case for AMZN. 2. There are limits to the amount of the spread allowed by each exchange. These limits prevent the specialist from "cheating" and serves the purpose of enforcing that an orderly market is maintained. 3. The primary exchange for AMZN options is the American and they have granted the AMZN specialist an exemption so that he or she can quote spreads much wider than normally allowed. In my opinion, the specialist has used this exemption as a license to execute orders at unfair prices. Since most people don't know that their orders will be automatically routed to the primary exchange, they assume that they are getting the bid/ask provided in the consolidated quote. In fact, the specialist on the American is outside the best bid and outside the best asked in a situation I have never seen on any other option. (Sometimes the primary is not on one of the best bid or the best asked, but to be neither is very unusual.) 4. The contact in complaints at the American is James Cameron. At a minimum I would urge you to ask him that a press release be issued since I think this is material information."