brooklyn

Hi once again,

I was wondering how do you use Level II quotes for your advantage? Could you give me an example?

And also when you see how many shares are bought or sold, how do you recognize those big blocks? How big is a big block that those specialists use? And how do you know if those shares got filled or not?

Thanks

CVD

Hi brooklyn,

here is some information about the subject:
A Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online - Zoeken naar boeken met Google

and:

http://www.level2stockquotes.com/inf...ow-to-use.html

peertrade

Is it possible to get a soft copy of the A Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online downloaded ?

Thanks
Peer

brooklyn

I'm just curious how useful are the LevelII quotes and Time and Sales when market makers can easily manipulate and show you what they want you to see?

CVD

Market makers are no gods, and cant 'mislead' you as easily as you think. I would only use Time and sales to see what the big-traders are doing and not get overwhelmed with all the little trades.
Then again, even if marketmakers are 'trying to mislead' the small trader via Level2/time and sales, so what? Its not like youre basing your trades on what you see on the level2 info.

brooklyn

CVD, I've just started using it. By looking at the time n sales how do I know if the orders that I see (especially the big ones) get filled? Or are those showing that are already being filled? And how big is a big block? For example are 6000 shares considered a big block for a $15 share? In other words how do I notice a market maker.

CVD

Im not sure how it works with shares, but the Time and sales you see are orders being executed (filled). What the level2 quotes are showing is an extended listing of the bid and asks-volumes (+ price). Those are orders that have are not yet been filled.
As far as a big block go im not sure about that in stocks, but i guess you can distinguish the big traders from the small/average ones when you look at the time and sales for a while. With the TOS platform you can filter out the big-trades. So you can select that you only see the 100.000 + dollar traders.

BrendanEgan88

Hey Everyone,
I actually have a video on my journal (see the first post I have in there and almost all the way down the post is a video explaining time and sales and level 2).

I use time and sales quite often and rarely use level 2. Level 2 is really a lot of games that go on although there are some people who claim they can successfully use level 2 with their trading.

-Brendan

StockJake

maybe helpful...

Level II Quotes/Spreads?

StockJake

I would also add that L2 can be helpful in certain situations.


If you are watching fast stocks like AAPL or RIMM it is NOT going to be very useful because everything is moving and changing too fast. Time and sales will tell you what you need to know.

If you are watching a thinly traded stock, Level II may or may not be helpful. It depends on the stock and the current situation.

If you are watching a thick heavily traded stock like DELL CSCO ORCL MSFT i find it pretty helpful.

brooklyn,
A block trade is usually considered to be 10,000 shares or more. If the trade is displayed in the time and sales window it is a completed trade.



-jake