Nasdaq Busts and my $11,000 story

The NASDAQ and ECN's cater to their biggest clients. The big houses make and break the rules as they please.
Haven't you guys noticed that one of the big firms always has "computer problems" or "system malfunctions" during the most volatile days of the year (i.e.--quadruple witching). It's the same shit every year, they take the prints that they want and break the ones they don't want.

Back in 2000, I had a trade that was executed $75,000 out of the money, and NASDAQ refused to break the trade.

The first day of "SuperMontage" (can't remember the date) I had SOES market orders that were filled 35% higher than the stock price and NASDAQ refused to break the trades because they said that was "the quoted market at that period of time".

In December of 2003, I was part of the COCO debacle and NASDAQ turned an up $30,000 trade into a down $15,000 trade.

It's an absolute disgrace that the U.S. stock markets are so corrupt. Like one of the previous poster's said, "If I told my friends, they wouldn't believe me."
 
geez....I think this is the first busted trade I've heard of where one of 'us' actually -made- money on it... :D

out of curiosity, what happens to option trades when a trade on the underlying is busted like that??
 
Quote from Htrader:

The following story is an example of the pitfalls inherent in trading and of the gross incompetence of the staff at the nasdaq.

You have heard that nasdaq busted a number of trades at the open that were 15% off from previous closing prices. Most of these trades occured in very illiquid stocks, no big deal. Except that one of those stocks was IIJI, a huge momentum stock that traded 18million shares and is down 33% today on bad news.

This morning I went long 20k shares of IIJI at 9:31am at 8.2, sold it all at 8.2 at 9:45am. I was playing for an opening bounce, didn't get it, no big deal, quickly forgot about the trade. At 4:00pm today, I checked all my trades, everything looked good and I shut down my system. Then about an hour ago, I get an email from IB, my broker, that nasdaq has decided to bust 11,000 shares of my original buy of IIJI at 8.2 at 9:31am. These were all the shares that were executed via supersoes. All the other trades on ECNs stand. So now I'm short 11k shares at a price of 8.2. Stock closed at 7.11. If prices stay about the same on monday, I could cover for a 11k gain. You might guess I'm happy, but not really. And here's why.

1. Nasdaq made the decision to bust the trade AFTER the close. And over 8 hours AFTER the original trade. Outrageous.

2. Nasdaq contradicted a direct statement they made at 2:30pm that no further trades would be busted. They also specifically said in that statement that the decision was "not appealable." Guess they changed their minds. Outrageous.

3. The trades made in IIJI at the open were completely valid. Stock was down over 15% because of bad news and not because of any trading error. There was no reason for the trades to be busted. Especially since it was only the supersoes trade, and not the ECN trades that was busted.

So assuming nasdaq doesn't change their minds again and unbust the busts on monday, which is possible, I'll probably cover for a gain. But my confidence in the nasdaq system has been significantly lowered, as this trade could have easily gone the other way. And the nasdaq people apparently have no sense of fairness or proper market decorum.
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Htrader;

1]Good trading plan and executing it and;
have played those gaps for years and went on to other things
simply because they can easly go against you 10% in a short time . Even if you dont have tek problems.

2] Understand why you arent happy and if they try to rip you off from your short sell profits;
would get many free estimates from an attorney/arbitrator.

3]Like risk reward ratio of certified letters to CEO also ;
actually this one has worked well with polite ,velvet covered iron fist.
:cool:

Let us know final results;
back to my NYSE stocks, occasional derivatives.
 
I guess no one read/understood my post.

This particular bust doesn't even make sense based on Nasdaq's own published criteria on this matter.

But better to rant and rave , than examine the facts.
 
Quote from froggie:

wait a minute, wait. wtf is going on here? If one made a trading error then that one will have to absorb the loss...Isn't that what fairness is supposed to be? Why do everyone have to get busted for some big shot who made an error?
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Just posted this over at the other thread:
High time the law have a serious go at this. Unthinkable that such blatant favoritism could stand in a court of law.

If any participant screws up for any reason, dumbness, technical or other, he'll have to swallow his own loss. Why should not that fat cat firm?

NASDAQ fellas should be tried as conspirators.
 
Others have stated this, but this bust doesn't even make sense. You will make money on the trade so it's not worth arguing, but it would be interesting to hear Nasdaq's explaination of why this is occuring. Your broker should be able to demand that info.

Just for the thread, I had many busts over the years and pretty much broke even until about 1.5 years ago when my automated system made a $13k error that got busted an hour later. Half was on ARCA, half on ISLD. So i'm net positive on this game :cool:
 
I'm definitely going to have to sort this out with my broker on monday morning.

From looking at the nasdaqtrader.com announcements, it looks like one particular market making firm had some technical issues at the open, so nasdaq decided to bust all of their trades, but nothing else. I'm guessing they were on the other side of those supersoes trades I did.

IIJI is not shortable at IB, so it will be interesting to see where and when they make me cover.

Thankfully, I have a significant account at IB, and I usually get a fair answer from them on trading matters. I'll let you guys know what the final result ends up being.
 
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