[z28dreams]

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Never say never. And what you said about the broker is false. They have to buy at the best, prevailing market price, by law. The online trading CEOS aren't risking Federal pound-me-into-ash jail time for your 200 shares of SBUX.

Having said that, the far majority of the time you should use limit orders unless there is some news/exogenous event you are waiting for that could cuff up your trade.

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This is probably true for most stocks that trade in pretty liquid markets (NASDAQ/DOW/etc).

I used to trade stocks on the OTC:BB (penny stocks). Here, it seemed really obvious that the market makers behind the scenes were pretty damn corrupt.

One example from my early trading days:

Bought a stock that was just picking up momentum with the market price set at .07 - with AON (all or none) conditions. Over the next 20 minutes, the stock ran up to .15. My order still not filled. Next 15 minutes, the stock crashes down to .05, and suddenly my order is filled. Convenient huh?

From then on I switched to market orders - I'd typically set my buy limit around 10% of the ask, and try to get in as early as possible. The same problem happens when trying to sell - because they markets aren't very liquid, you really need to try to get out just before everyone else decides to sell or it's damn near impossible to get rid of your shares.

A typical trade for me might look like this:

Stock is at .09 x .10, level II shows that a big market maker (NITE) just swiched from the ask to the bid, and it went from 2x1 to 3x1.

I put in an order to buy X amount of shares with a limit price of .12.

The stock runs up to .16, and LII now shows that there are 4-5 market makers on the ask here. The wall doesn't seem to be dropping - I immediately put in a sell with a limit of .14.

It also depended on which market makers were still on the ASK - if there were big names (NITE,MASH,etc).

I'm pretty sure the OTC:BB is very loosely regulated compared to the bigger exchanges, though.

Another interesting thing I'd see on the T&S sheet would be a huge stream of sales at the bid (people buying the stock), but the price being dumped down. From what I understand MM's can do naked shorts, so I imagine there's some way they make more money from this. Maybe someone who understands the back-scenes of these things can explain it to me.

Man, it's been a while since I traded.