Thursday, February 14, 2008

Why small spread is important in day trading?

Spread is the difference between bids and ask price. Day traders always want the spread to be as small as possible, so what does the small and large spread indicate?

Large spread indicates that the individual stock or the market is not trading actively, less active means less volume. Larger spread could also mean indecisions of direction what day trader wants to avoid.
For example, the spread of XYZ stock is 10 ticks, so if I wanna buy 1000 share of XYZ & sell it 1 second later I will lose 100 $, just to break even I need to gain 10 ticks. The larger the spread the dipper the pain.

Market order will get filled at acceptable price if the stock have small spread, so day trader feel comfortable placing market order which is quicker & more effective then limit order in day trading.

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