Being very familiar with this type of trading, I am very surprised that they were that stupid to trade in big size near the close.... I'm also surprised that th

Being very familiar with this type of trading, I am very surprised that they were that stupid to trade in big size near the close.... I'm also surprised that this was a successful strategy on the Nasdaq... especially in 2009 as volatility was coming down quite a bit from the previous years. What the SEC really should be investigating is the rampant use (or probably misuse) of d-quotes on the NYSE. These effectively allow you to put on-close orders after the on-close cutoff time of 1545. These orders get routed to specialists and god knows what theyre doing behind the scenes.... I havent run the numbers but I would wager that last-15 minute volatility in NYSE names is way higher than on NASDAQ. Get rid of the d-quotes and get rid of the specialists....