Investor Help (NO Ihub questions)

[cintrix]

Sometimes ave appears after the number of shares, sometimes the word cash appears next to the number, and sometimes just the number shows.

I have no idea what feed you are using and where you are getting that from. My provider does not have anything like that next to the printed trades. And yes, it does happen where a block trade will happen below the bid:

Trades above the ask and below the bid typically fall into one of two categories. They are either pre-arranged block trades, or reporting anomalies.

In regards to pre-arranged block trades, there are "upstairs" trades which do not go through the order book at all. They are, however, printed as trades. For example...an institutional trader wants to sell 5M shares of something with a float of 130M shares. If this broker can work out a deal with someone to take the shares, the price isn't going to be at the market. It is not going to be anywhere near the bid price. They will negotiate a specific slippage, print it, and the buyer now has to work the order. The buyer is hoping that he has banked enough slippage to make up for the unknown slippage of actually distributing it.

In regards to reporting anomalies, there is no centralized marketplace and therefore no NBBO (National Best Bid and Offer). All trades are supposed to be reported and posted on the consolidated tape even though the trades were executed off exchange and never exposed to the best bid/ask. But some exchanges report new bid/ask only after a complete trade. A purchase of a large contract may wipe out 1-2 levels of bid/ask, but this is not reported until AFTER the trade reports, so for the computer the trade happen outside KNOWN bid/ask for that time.

As far as impact on future price is concerned, the answer is none. Since most of these prints are what I described above, they rarely impact future prices. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110507093007AAzUuuj