I'd like to make everyone on this forum aware of TradeStation Securities practices.
In May I sold June Heating Oil (HO) calls. The calls ended up expiring in the money and consequently a short positions was assigned on May 27th. On May 28th TradeStation exited the positions without my orders and without prior notification. Upon inquiry, their trade desk manager, Gary Bearson, replied that it is their policy to offset open position prior to the last trading day. It begs the following questions:
Why bother with the Last Trading Day at all?
What other trades are you planning in my account?
What is the basis for an authority of Tradestation Securities trade desk manager to arbitrarily decide when to conduct trades in the customer account?
Mr. Gary Bearson was alluding in his reply that this is done as courtesy to customers and the customer agreement allows him to conduct such trades. However, he ignored repeated requests to point out which exact clause in the agreement gives him such an authority. Reading the agreement such stipulation canât be found. Furthermore, I had exact same short positions with two other brokers, but they werenât exited.
I filed a complaint with NFA (matter: 2008CINV01423), no response yet. Anyone who is interested, I can forward emails and trade statements relating to the issue.
In May I sold June Heating Oil (HO) calls. The calls ended up expiring in the money and consequently a short positions was assigned on May 27th. On May 28th TradeStation exited the positions without my orders and without prior notification. Upon inquiry, their trade desk manager, Gary Bearson, replied that it is their policy to offset open position prior to the last trading day. It begs the following questions:
Why bother with the Last Trading Day at all?
What other trades are you planning in my account?
What is the basis for an authority of Tradestation Securities trade desk manager to arbitrarily decide when to conduct trades in the customer account?
Mr. Gary Bearson was alluding in his reply that this is done as courtesy to customers and the customer agreement allows him to conduct such trades. However, he ignored repeated requests to point out which exact clause in the agreement gives him such an authority. Reading the agreement such stipulation canât be found. Furthermore, I had exact same short positions with two other brokers, but they werenât exited.
I filed a complaint with NFA (matter: 2008CINV01423), no response yet. Anyone who is interested, I can forward emails and trade statements relating to the issue.
Nothing that tradestation does will surprise me, I remember them telling me they offer daytrade futures margins but they're not built into their tradestation software, you get them but can't see your real buying power. Nice job guys.