how to make sense of 'latest trades' info

[raysor]

Interesting.

So its good to look at the latest trades and see what they are being done at price wise. But i can never tell if its a buy or a sell.

Yes its silly. So when you know the OFFER price is not the realistic price, you go an put a limit order on at your desired price, right?

Selftrade and yahoo finance are not in agreement, selftrade says zero volume on certain days traded for certain companies, but yahoo says otherwise eg thousands or hundreds of thousands. Is yahoo finace a reliable source for pretty up to date data in the day?

There is a lot more in it than just getting a share slightly cheaper. If you think a stock is right to buy at a certain level then your first priority is to do the trade. Also it's not a question of always haggling just for the sake of it. If a stock is going up it's easier to sell at a good price than to buy cheap and vice versa. If someone is selling a car at £5000 and you want it what do you do? If you reaally want it and you believe someone else might come along and pay £5000 you will just pay up. If you are not sure or maybe can't quite afford it you may offer £4500. The seller may have just bought it at £4000 so he says yes to your offer. If you had been the only potential buyer he may have taken £4250! The usual rule about stocks is to bid just above the middle price or offer just below the mid price. Also in penny shares the spread is usually horrendous. i.e. 3-4 is 30% and 2-3p is 50%.
The usual spread in larger stocks is 1p/£1 but don't forget extended settlement (T+10) will probably cost you another 1p/£1
In your case I would concentrate on stock selection primarily and avoid stocks taht are not trading and therefore have wide spreads. If you fancy a share, keep an eye on the traded volumes and the pread narrowing (if you must)

 

[Trader333]

Level2 tells you the price and volume the MMs MUST trade at

Volume displayed by MM cannot be relied upon as it is often faked.


Paul

 

[foredog]

Not so much in the smaller Uk co's as the LSE were a bit nosey about big trades being cancelled.

 

[raysor]

Volume displayed by MM cannot be relied upon as it is often faked.


Paul

What do you mean by that? How is it faked?
It may not not be completely transparent but faked?
As I understand it the minimum market size is governed by LSE rules.
I was going to mention in previous post that you have to take into account the possibility of delayed trade reporting (again for which there are laid down rules). Also you should be aware of "bargain conditions". Such as put throughs and of course rollovers.
I would be interested in what you consider to be a faked displayed volume.
The word fake seems to suggest something not quite legal.

 

[gooseman]

he means they might show a bid for 10,000 shares but actually only want to trade 5k. it is real enough but if someone sells 5k into the bid he may pull the remaining balance as he would prefer not to be left long of 10k.

 

[raysor]

he means they might show a bid for 10,000 shares but actually only want to trade 5k. it is real enough but if someone sells 5k into the bid he may pull the remaining balance as he would prefer not to be left long of 10k.

That doesn't sound like a fake. That's just market making.

How can you pull the balance?
If the minimum required size is 10 then it's 10.
If it's 5 then he needn't make the quote in 10

 

[gooseman]

it's called spoofing.

 

[raysor]

it's called spoofing.

Someone has to lose in a game of spoof!
You still didn't answer my question. Maybe you were spoofing.

 

[gooseman]

in any market you just press the "pull order" button. pretty straight forward.

 

[raysor]

in any market you just press the "pull order" button. pretty straight forward.

Sorry, I thought you said the MM could/would pull the quote.

 

[gooseman]

he can-he can change his size or price as he sees fit (obviously in accordance with his deal with whatever exchange it may be)

 

[raysor]

Maybe it would be better if Trader333 answered my original question (what do you mean by "fake") rather than have words put in his mouth.

 

[gooseman]

agreed

 

[raysor]

agreed

There should be an icon of a handshake, I feel!! LOL

 

[Trader333]

I was primarily referring to Nasdaq stocks where a MM may show a size of just 1 on the inside bid and be buying all the stock possible by refreshing his quote. Similarly they may show a size of 500 and as has already been said either pull the quantity or pull the price. It is done to lure other traders into thinking something appears to be what it is not and from that standpoint is fake. It is all quite legal but it does happen and certain MM are well known for doing it with certain stocks where they are know to be the main MM for that stock. This is why watching T&S is important if you wish to be a Level II trader or use Level II in your trading.


Paul

 

[gooseman]

iceberging/spoofing call it what you will

 

[raysor]

I was primarily referring to Nasdaq stocks where a MM may show a size of just 1 on the inside bid and be buying all the stock possible by refreshing his quote. Similarly they may show a size of 500 and as has already been said either pull the quantity or pull the price. It is done to lure other traders into thinking something appears to be what it is not and from that standpoint is fake. It is all quite legal but it does happen and certain MM are well known for doing it with certain stocks where they are know to be the main MM for that stock. This is why watching T&S is important if you wish to be a Level II trader or use Level II in your trading.


Paul

Is there not an NMS or are you saying that the orders are anonymous MMs?
I read somewhere that MMs put orders in just below the bid and a larger order on the offer (you can see I haven't thought this through).When their sale goes through they pull the "fake" order out. I have often thought of doing this myself but thought that it might be construed as market manipulation/abuse so have refrained. But I suspect , in the US anything goes!

 

[jonboy123]

about checking how liquid shares were today.
The volume information.

Im seeing conflicting figs on diff sites when comparing figs for a company.

FOr example: yahoo finace says VOLUME is 70,000 (for today i presume)
does this mean 70,000 TRADES were made? or does it mean 70,000 SHARES exchanged hands??? the latter could be just one huge trade then, in theory.

So i would say the No. of trades per day is more accurate of volume figure.....right?

the same company could say 2mill was volume, on a diff site.

Are some sites unreliable?

 

[foredog]

Volume is number of hsres traded.

SO somebody has sold somebody else 70000 shares, could be one big trade or 70 little ones.

 

[jonboy123]

Volume is number of hsres traded.

SO somebody has sold somebody else 70000 shares, could be one big trade or 70 little ones.

yeah, but compare yahoo finance volume figure. if you look at the volume figure, and then you compare with a diff site, its way diff, and if you look at latest trades info yahoo finance too, theres way more shares being traded, so yahoo volume figure sounds like its the AMOUNT of trades, not amount of shares being traded.