LCPR - Quoting Madness

Nanex Ongoing Research

On June 7, 2012 the stock LCPR generated 8,061,359 (8 million) quotes for the day and 0 trades. The amount of quotes represented approx 1% of ALL quotes on ALL U.S. stocks for the day. To put this into further perspective, the quotes represented approx. 25% of ALL trades for ALL US equities for the day. The majority of these quotes came from the Nasdaq exchange.

Curious questions/comments pop into ones mind when this type of activity is observed:
  • Nasdaq claims to be on the forefront of eliminating excessive quoting. Really?
  • The Toronto exchange, in total and for all stocks, had 10 million quotes (for 6/7/2012).
  • Quote/Trade ratio: 8,061,359 / 0. This must be a new record.
  • How many quotes does it take Nasdaq to change a light bulb?
  • Can you imagine Nasdaq bidding on a work contract? You know, where you submit a quote?
  • Nasdaq manages to send 6.6 million quotes for a stock that doesn't trade, yet takes 3 hours to send the first real quote in the most anticipated IPO of the year (Facebook).


The following chart shows the entire day's activity:




The nest set of tick charts show the quoting activity for just 1 minute in LCPR:

1 Minute Sequence, full quote range:



Zoom into NBBO range:



Zoom on Bid Prices only (note the range of the bid prices (and the NBBO) is about $4.00!):



Zoom on Bid Prices and time:



How to read the Tickchart

Nanex Ongoing Research