If you're in a hurry, just click the Quick Fill button in the middle of the LOB. Chances are, you'll get an immediate fill for your order with either a savings with respect to the current national market, more depth (greater size completed), or both. In this case, you would save $13.75 relative to trading on the national market prices.
If you have some time to take in the sights, you can see that the top of the LOB shows you the current best prices in the national market. (This is called NBBO, or National Best Bid and Offer.) The bottom of the LOB shows the current offers for your order. Many of these offers are internal to our system. In other words, they're not part of the national market prices. So already you've got an advantage over sending traditional buy and sell orders. Another advantage is that you can trade directly against these offers just by clicking the Trade button on the right side of the offer line. Think about it. They showed you theirs but you didn't have to show them yours! (Your limit price, that is.) Now that's power. Most of the time, you'll get either a more favorable trade price or greater trade depth than in the national market's, but you'll always get an immediate report telling you how your execution worked out. Usually, your trade will be filled. But even if you miss your trade because the market changed at the same time you were clicking the button, you'll still find out right away. No more waiting a few minutes while the market's going bananas just to find out whether you own the position or not.
OK, so maybe what you really wanted was to enter a limit order and trade
your CSCO and INTC at prices better than in the current market. We can
do that...
| « exit tour | « back | continue » |