Hello Everyone,

Today I turn to my good friend Eliza Copelan for a blog entry. When I attend User Summits, I get so many questions about why to use TotalView if I already have Level II? This is a great answer. I hope you enjoy and don't forget that we will be in Houston on November the 13th.

Why TotalView? After all, I use Level 2 data, and I have all I need.

That may be true if you're not aware of what you're missing. Imagine that Level 2 is a porthole, and NASDAQ TotalView is a bay window. How much better and more complete would the view be? For those of you who want to see the complete picture, NASDAQ TotalView is your solution.

TotalView is NASDAQ's gold standard for quality market data, recognized throughout the professional and non-professional trading communities. After all, your trading strategies are only as good as the data used to implement them. And, TotalView offers you the highest quality of data, providing you with numerous advantages:

• TotalView shows all of the quotes and orders (the full market depth) in NASDAQ, Brut and INET rather than just the small subset that Level 2 displays. TotalView represents more than 22 times the liquidity of Level 2 and three times more liquidity within five cents of the inside market. This additional depth allows you to follow pockets of liquidity over time and affords you the discovery of new trading opportunities that those with only Level 2 data cannot see.
  
  
• TotalView is the fastest source of NASDAQ order-book data available. This means that TotalView's speed allows you to act upon market-moving news and events as quickly as possible.
  
  
• TotalView reveals multiple quotes for each market participant. If you are using Level 2, you can only see one quote from each firm. TotalView exposes the extent of customer limit orders and gives you a hint as to how market makers are strategically working big institutional orders.
  
  
• TotalView includes Net Order Imbalance information, enhanced supply and demand data related to the NASDAQ Opening, Closing and IPO Crosses. The NASDAQ Crosses are extremely popular mechanisms that indicate accurate and consistent opening and closing prices for NASDAQ-listed issues and the opening of NASDAQ initial public offerings (IPOs). This enables you to execute on-open and on-close interest with unparalleled transparency. And, it provides a preview of forces that will affect a stock's opening and closing prices. This data reveals trading opportunities that are not visible anywhere else in the market and is critical for anyone trying to open or close positions near the beginning or at the end of the trading day.

There are many examples of how TotalView data can be used to execute trading strategies more effectively than Level 2 data alone:

Example 1:

Dave, an active trader, entered a trade early in the day and rode the stock up for a while. He now considers exiting his position. His average purchase price on his 1,000 shares was $27.99. His interest in exiting the stock is principally that he wants to escape with zero loss or better. He is firm in his conviction not to carry positions overnight unless absolutely necessary. His TotalView display on ScottradeELITE displays the following:

If he was only using Level 2, he would see no buyers at $45.7027.99, $45.7128.00 or $45.7228.01, and he would also miss 8,300 over 24,000 shares at $45.7027.99. With TotalView, he sees that he can get out of his current position profitably. If he was only looking at Level 2, he would think that he'd need to take a loss in order to exit. Without TotalView, he would hold the position until the end of the day, never see another profitable exit point and be forced to carry the position overnight. By using TotalView, he is able to ensure profits.

Example 2:

Sam, a swing-trader, is looking to get out of his current position immediately, as there is a rumor that news is about to break. Sam has held his position for more than several weeks and has experienced modest gains. However, spooked by the potential for bad news, Sam wants to get out now. By using TotalView, Sam is able to see where the true market is prior to a Level 2 trader. After all, the quotes from $45.7328.02 to $45.7128.00 on the bid-side fanned out from $45.7027.99 only an instant before Sam pulled them up. These quotes appeared more quickly on Sam's ScottradeELITE display than it did on his friend's Level 2 display. Sam can take immediate action based on seeing this data prior to his friend. His friend, not aware of some of the quotes in the montage, and seeing other quotes only after they appeared in TotalView, is unable to take action since he couldn't determine the total liquidity as quickly as Sam could.

As these examples indicate, using TotalView on the ScottradeELITE platform can allow you to take advantage of many trading opportunities that are not available to those using Level 2 data. These benefits have made TotalView the new standard in the trading community. Through ScottradeELITE, you can trade with the same tools that the professional, institutional community uses. Why trade with only one piece of the view, when you can have panoramic vision?

For more information about NASDAQ TotalView on ScottradeELITE, please look for upcoming podcasts, which will address, in more detail, the benefits of NASDAQ TotalView data. Learn how you can use TotalView to better understand the "true depth" of the NASDAQ market and how TotalView can help you to make smarter, more profitable trades.

Eliza Copelan, Director of NASDAQ Market Data Distribution, works with market data vendors and data subscribers to identify ways that NASDAQ market data can be used to their benefit. She has worked extensively with active trader audiences in explaining the advantages of trading with TotalView data.