Introduction to Level II (level 2, L2, L II, Lii) - Page 5

For OTC and pinksheets stocks-

Has anyone ever seen or been able to use level two's where you can see the actual size of the lots sizes? I have heard that SEC is trying to regulate the gray area level two's but have not been able to. I have a example of what i mean by "gray area" at the bottom.

I have heard that larger institutions are allowed access to gray area level twos. This could be a huge advantage in my opinion if we could see why a stock is going up or down on a low volume day and where the news is imminent. For example if the 005 is stacked at ASK with 4 MM, but in reality only 2 million shares are on sale in the aggregate of all the lots sizes. Vs. the BID is slim going all the way down to 0045, however, the lot sizes for ever level of price drop have huge pending buy orders to be filled.

Now the MM simply stack the ASK with a few shares, since the average joe can't see the "gray area" -- he sells.

What do you think?

Thanks
-cal

I Have a question...
When im watching L2 Intra-day sometimes i see a sell/buy thats way different then the last price, and i think to myself why would someone sell that low or buy that high...
for ex.
Bid 9.99 ask 10.00
then ill see a order go thru for 100 shares @ 10.30..
I cant quite wrap my mind around this, someone help?

wow great freee L2

you never know why someone is buying at a certain price maybe he hasnt even real time quotes or has his buy order in good till cancled because hes not on the computer or some indsider buying.

Here we see Merrill Lynch flashing a big bid of 30,000 shares at $32.55, when traders see this kind of thing we think "holy cow! somebody at Merrill wants a boat load of shares, Im going to jump infront of him and he will have to buy them higher up, thus causing the stock to rise!" But hang on! There is MLCO on the sell side with 1000 shares, it could be that MLCO will pull that bid once he gets to sell his shares at $32.59... Keep an eye open for these things.
This was posted by Stockjock-e first page second post .
Sorry , I tried to use the qoute would not let me . I could not get L2 picture with this post
I have an ?
If mlco has an bid for 30,000 shares , also has sell for 1,000 share
I don't understand . Why the bid an sell at the same time
Maybe the newbie in me
can someone help me on this.
Thank you

GREAT thread! I have tried to understand L2 for the longest but this REALLY made it easy for me to understand

thanks for the l2 lesson...the trick of placing a huge buy to raise the price while also selling on the otherside is so sneaky lol...and smart! Def will watch for that! Thanx

It sounds to me like they've set the bid in such a way that they know it won't be executed prior to their sale. Then, once their sale is complete, they cancel the bid and all those who thought "omg I have to buy too!" were faked out and now have buy orders they probably regret.

On this chart can anyone help me break it down
The size 50 means ?
bid an ask
bid = is what they are offering
ask = is the current price
mmid is the Market Makers
Is this correct
Thank you

I have a Q. On Schwab you cant view the MM's and what price they are at, etc. I have adapted otherways, but feel this is a huge advantage in seeing a stocks strength/weakness. I was wondering if there is a site i could download software to see that or am i screwed unless i have Ameritrade or one of the other trade Com. thanks

Do you use Pro Street? I get it free from Schwab.

Street smart pro.. yeah i do..

I got this at
http://www.hotstockmarket.com/index....&qm_page=43140

I also this listed here on hsm
http://www.level2stockquotes.com/
I don't if this help you

I'm not @ home, so I can't look it up. They have two different platforms. Is the one you mentioned the best on (I can't recall the name right now).

The one I use shows all the bids and ask, as well as the sales, but it doesn't list the individual MM's (arca).

Am i missing the MM's somewhere on there?

yeah i had to downlaod it. looks like a cockpit with 4 diff trade windows and all sorts of tools,etc.

It lists them just as ARCA; it doesn't list the actual MM names like I see others posting.

DO they give you any info on how to determine whats going on in them boxes? i know it isnt a buy/sell marked box. So i assume ill have to play around some with it Eh.

I hardly am ever able to use it as I work bank hours. At work I can't download the platform as our IT has it block. While at work, which is most of the time, I get stuck using on StreetSmart as it doesn't require any software downloads. I'll post a shot and see if this is the same program. To me the SmartStreet is ghetto.

This is the regular StreetSmart, not the Pro.