Buy to cover question

C

CasperCRF

I'm so pissed right now but here is my question, I had a short that I was up $200 I was in at 8.85 and was covering at 8.79. The bid ask was 8.78-8.79. When I went to cover, I got filled at 8.91! So i ended up -$200 on the trade! I used a market order to cover but why did I get filled so much higher then the current Ask? And my fill to get covered didn't even show up on the chart, it only showed a high of 8.85. Can some one explain this to me? I can take a loss, but when I think I actually made money on a trade and ended up losing, it kills me.:( I never had a problem using market orders to cover before...
 
Well, I know I got filled at the highest price that was able to fill my trade in 1 fill but why wouldn't I get partial fills of a 100 shares here and there?
 
Hello,

Some friendly advice which I learned long ago. When scalping for pennies, or even dimes and nickles with multi lots of 1000s or better, NEVER and I do say NEVER market out. On thinly traded issues this could be on as few as 100 lots to several hundred. This would be in exception to the stop side unless you're very disciplined and will pull the trigger w/o fail. To market out is asking the spec or mm to stomp on your fingers and toes. It is the same for market in unless the stock is heavily traded and very thick where the bid asks is narrow, and has multiple of 1000s on the bid/ask.

Fortunately for you it was only a $200 lesson. Accept the loss, deal with the emotion it brought, learn form the mistake, and get back to whatever it is you've done or are doing to be a SUCCESSFUL trader!!


Good Luck and God Bless!

Kelly
 
Hey Casper, I'd like to throw in my newbie .02 cents. If it was a listed stock, which it seems to be by the way it transacted, it's a common and normal practice by the specialist. The specialist does not need to honor the NBBO for the sake of order flow.

In your case, you seemed to have held a few thousand shares short and by trying to cover on market, the specialist does not need to fill the 100, 200 shares from the NBBO and instead he/she could opt to fill your entire block at an entirely different price. This is especially true on thinly traded securities. It has always been this way on the listed securities and the specialists.

If it was Nasdaq, then of course that shouldn't have happened, you could have gotten some partial fills from the NBBO first, then the next higher ask price. I would call the broker, if I were you.

Hope that helped and happy trading :)
 
I attached the chart from today. The stock was NITE and I got filled short 3500 shares at 9:35. I covered 2 minutes later at 9:37. You can see on the chart that it didn't even show up in the chart as a trade. I just checked on Yahoo and Stock charts and they show it on their charts as a trade but it didn't show up on mine. This just irks me because I go to cover thinking i just made a nice trade and then it showed up as a loss in my pnl. I wrote my broker, still haven't heard anything yet. I don't expect anything to come from it, just live and learn. It still pisses me off though!:mad: :mad: :mad:
 

Attachments

Here are the prints. Too late nothing you can do. Trade not busted. 1.36% slippage from the 8.79 trades.

Was it NITE that filled you? lol

Exchange Time Price Change Volume

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:24 8.79 0.56 500

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:24 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:24 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:24 8.79 0.56 300

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:24 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:24 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:25 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:26 8.79 0.56 700

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:27 8.91 0.68 3,500

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:28 8.79 0.56 800

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:29 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:31 8.79 0.56 300

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:32 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:33 8.79 0.56 190

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:46 8.79 0.56 300

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:47 8.80 0.57 500

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:47 8.80 0.57 500

Q 2005-10-19 09:37:54 8.80 0.57 1,200

Q 2005-10-19 09:38:03 8.79 0.56 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:38:09 8.79 0.56 200

Q 2005-10-19 09:38:31 8.80 0.57 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:38:31 8.80 0.57 600

Q 2005-10-19 09:38:31 8.80 0.57 100

Q 2005-10-19 09:38:31 8.80 0.57 100
 
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