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The tracking is actually fine. The VXX net change you see is based on the price at 16:00 the previous day; but VIX futures' net change is based on the price at 16:15 the previous day. A lot can happen in those 15 minutes. There's often a movement of 1% to 1.5% in the few seconds before 16:15.

Back when I used Datek, I'd sometimes get odd-lot fills for my round-lot orders. My theory was that the other side was trading either a basket of stocks or some round dollar amount (e.g. $10K worth of CSCO).

My experience is that if you still own the stock on the morning of the ex-div date, you will get the dividend.

Unless your order is larger than the quantity at the best bid or ask, a market order will fill instantly, generally at the worst possible price for you. If you're willing to buy at the best ask or sell at the best bid, you'll also generally get filled instantly (assuming the quantity is...

When I traded with Schwab, one morning one of my holdings jumped up $40, almost doubling. I got two phone calls from Schwab premarket. The first was from a rep who was calling everyone who held the stock, just to give them a heads-up. (I had already noticed and had sold some of my position.)...

Are you able to use Flash or Java?

I did that, and it worked. Sometimes, though, doing this also hangs (the order status turns to magenta), and you have to call IB to ask them to clear it.

It's good if you can afford it. Around here (northern NJ), in a safe town, an apartment is $14K/year, including heat, school taxes, and property upkeep. A house, in addition to the mortgage payments, will cost at least $8K/year in taxes and several thousand more for heat and property maintenance.

One of the presenters on a TOS talk said that traders are finding other ways to hedge besides buying S&P put options, such as bonds.

The change in VXX that you'll see quoted is relative to its 4pm close the previous day. The change in VIX futures that you'll see quoted is relative to the 4:15pm close the previous day. There is typically movement of 1% or more, usually downward, in trading from 4pm-4:15pm, so VXX will often...

Negative analyst comments. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chipotle-falls-analyst-suggests-slower-180046569.html

If you place a limit sell order at a price below the current best bid and the market is open, you're entitled to be filled at the current best bid (if there are enough shares there). Note that the bid can be 5 or 10 cents below the last trade price. If your limit sell order price is higher...

Yes, but when you're long VXX and similar ETNs, you're facing not only the futures declining toward spot VIX but also the rollover penalty. Take the 2 week period before the front month futures expire. You may find that holding the front-month futures during this time period will result in a...

Latest mobile TWS update has full screen charts. Thanks, IB. Small bug: label is truncated after first token, so instead of "FB Jul 20 '12 30 Call" it just displays "FB".

Cocoon sounds like a nice idea, but keep in mind that when you use an anonymizing proxy server you are swimming with sharks, and if one of them does something illegal the entire server may be seized by law enforcement and scrutinized.

I used to understand the option exercise panel in TWS.. I'd select "lapse (do not exercise)", and something would be set indicating that the options would not be exercised. But I tried it a few minutes ago with FB $29 options that expire today and were about to go in the money. TWS popped up...

With mobile TWS, when I go into chart tools and enable the volume window, it only shows bars for US equities. It's always blank for US options and futures. iTWS showed volume for all three types of contracts. Anyone else have this issue?

If this is for tax purposes, use whatever method your broker has on record for you, probably FIFO. If it's just for your own use... I use LIFO because I usually scale into and out of positions, but some people use average price.

Any way to get full-screen charts on Mobile TWS? That's about the only thing that's holding me up from moving from iTWS. Well, that and the fact that expired options not only do not get autoremoved in Mobile TWS, they cause it to crash.

Was it Discover Brokerage that had the ad with the truck driver that went Passenger: Vacation spot? Driver: Actually, it's a picture of my house. Passenger: It's an island. Driver: Well, technically it's a country. The ad I find most disturbing (because it was true for a lot of us) was...