Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (16124)	6/5/1999 1:28:00 PM
From: James F. Hopkins	Respond to of 99985

Hi Haim, More often than not even a small spread on the bid/ask is meaningless..they have a lot of leeway in skewing the where taht bid/ask is at. As for the offer/ask size that's also just about meaningless , at times it's real at times it's slight of hand and you never know what it was except in retrospect which is useless as to what it might be in the next 5 minutes. About all you can do is watch the trades and the size of them going on an uptick or down tick, even that can be meaningless if they are in shorting mode and taking out stop losses by other shorts. ---------------------- The specialist and market makers "make market" and they see "big" orders to both buy and sell stock above and below the current price when they are there. They Will then try to do what it takes to fill those orders on both sides..which one they go for first often depends on their personal experience with the institutions that have the orders up..but they will take the price to those orders, on both sides & often a little beyond them, taht's the real spread not the 1/8 or whatever we see. Damm I need to get off this kick, if In get Qcharts I'll likely go nuts looking at all the innards twitching and knowing it's being done by maggots dressed up to look like people. Jim