OXY Slippage...

...specialists each have their own personality. The Chicago Specialist for Lucent(LU) is a royal prick so I don't bother placing my orders with him/her. Traders in general will gun for stops or attempt to, because Stops generally Cluster around the same price levels, and a single share printing at the stop price can open a floodgate... Especially at volatile times of the day like at the open... First of all, if you trading an energy stock, or oil specifically, you got to watch out Wednesday mornings when AIP releases crude supply domestically, and it was no mystery that the priced dipped because of OPEC comments for raising supply... you also got stopped out because OXY was consolidating and people clustered stops and 'sell at the open' orders around 76.30, and because OXY is relatively THIN(see open book), a large sell order can easily take out small bids dotted all the way and below your stop loss price... when the bids are painted with 1000 shares, to 500 shares, to 7000 at most at different prices, without tight pricing, like in this example, after 77.79 the next best bid is at 77.73, and then it gets even more loose.... etc, yeah, you could get stopped out and slipped a a bit, especially when 200,000 shares trade in the first 10 minutes after the open... I hate having to show my hand by placing a hard stop, but that's money management... Best advice for reducing slippage: find a pocket of liquidity, in this example, I'd place a stop right above the 7000 share bid at 77.7, place it around 77.71, so I'm pretty sure if it prints, I have enough to lean on and get out at 77.7... On other news, TICS data was poor, with nobody buying U.S. debt... CPI shows a drop in prices for the first time in 10 months, this market is sluggish and that's why I'm writing on this blog... and my friend wants me to go to gross but fun Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, but I sorta can't because I'm down for the month, and well, feel downright despondent about many things...