Please Help - Etrade cost me $2,500 today

Quote from tradermike88:

TorontoTrader, I used their "auto" function to submit the order originally so I am not sure where they route those orders to. Obviously, I will never use this "auto" function again. So is it possible that I routed my order to the NYSE specialist on this stock when I placed it before the close and the specialist are gone at 4 so the order cannot be canceled? I could understand this on a day when no news is coming out, but not when you have quarterly earnings coming out.

Mike


The spec was probably in the bar watching CNBC at 4:05pm, laughing at the people who bought IBM. :D
 
Quote from tradermike88:

Hi,

I bought 500 shares of IBM about 5 minutes before the close at $99.45. I then placed an order using their "auto" ecn to sell these 500 shares at $99.65. I was trying to make a play on the volatility from the earnings release afterhours. A few minutes after the market closed I cancelled the order to sell the 500 shares at $99.65 because I wanted to make sure that INET was used as the ECN. I then tried submitting my INET sell order several times and it got rejected saying I did not own the shares to sell. I looked at my original order and it was frozen as pending to cancel. I tried to cancel it repeatedly and during that time the earnings came out. I tried cancelling it and repeatedly submitting sell orders, but it was frozen for about 10 minutes at this point. I then got called etrade in a panic and evenutally got throught to their trade desk. Finally, after being put on hold for 10 minutes the trade desk rep came on and said he had killed the original order so that I could now sell my shares. I said "are you kidding". My order has been frozen for 20 minutes & this cost me $2,500. He agreed that it was their fault that the order froze and I could not sell my shares for 20 minutes and said he would file a trade dispute. Has anyone had similar experiences? I am really upset about this situation and don't know how to proceed. They said they will get back to me in 24 hours. I am wondering what happens in these circumstances usually. Is it possible that the market maker who was given the order to sell my shares held off on cancelling it so they could fill it if the price shot up and leave me hung out to dry if it crashes?

Thanks,
Mike

you've really got no business making that kind of trade, with that kind of broker

that's the lesson you learned for $2500
 
Not trying to be an ass, but I think the bigger issue here is that you were trying to make .20 off IBM in an after-hours earnings play???

Why not just go bet everything on the spin of the roulette wheel?

Putting aside the fact that the trade was ridiculous, if you are trying to scalp .20 moves you should not be doing it on anything but a direct access broker. Would you take your Honda Accord to the NASCAR track and try to compete?
 
I think we all have some horror stories to tell you about. Here is one of mine, which may shed some light on your likely outcome:

I placed 2 market orders before the market opened with 2 different firms: Brown and Company and Scottrade.

I wanted to see how each filled my order and what price I would get from each.

The stock I was interested in was EP. It had closed the day before at 7.10.

Brown and Co. filled my order for 3000 shares @ 7.10.
Scottrade filled my order for 3000 shares @ 7.90.

I was very surprised at the difference and called Scottrade to ask why such a high price on the fill. They said the stock gapped up and that is the best they could get it at, even though it was a market order on the open.


I said ok fine. The stock then went down to about 7.50 or so. I decided to sell off the 3000 shares I had gotten for 7.10 and take a .40/share profit or $1200 from Brown and Co. shares I got for cheap.

I then kept the other shares from Scottrade for the longer haul. EP closed the day at about 7.40.

When I got home that night from work, I had a message on my answering machine from Brown and Company saying that there was a mistake on the price I had bought the shares at. The message said I had actually bought the shares at 7.90, not 7.10 and that it was just a typo error.

I went balistic! I was pissed because instead of a $1200 gain, I had in fact just realized a $1200 loss!

I called Brown and Company and they said, "well you should have known that that price of 7.10 was just an honest mistake and I should have known that was a mistake because that price was so far off what any reasonable person would expect"

I was like ???what? The stock had closed at 7.10 the night before, so why would I think getting filled at 7.10 was so obsurd?

They said the only thing they could do was back out my sale at 7.50 but I would still have the shares @ 7.90. I realized of course all they were doing was buying the shares on the open market for me at 7.40 which I could have done anyways!

After that f*&& up, I dropped Brown and Company.

I have heard that I could have disputed it since I did get a confirmation of price and quantity of the trade, but I decided to just drop it and move on.

I was more pissed that they didn't email me or call me at my work number so I could at least try to figure out what to do during the day.

Live and learn I guess.

Good luck to you.
 
Quote from tradermike88:

Thanks for the well wishes. I am really upset and don't understand what happened to my sell order. I tried to cancel my 99.65 sell order several minutes before the earnings were released. It was stuck in a pending cancellation mode for over 20 minutes until someone at etrade finally killed the order. During this time IBM traded over $100. Therefore, how is it possible that the order was not filled. I feel like if it had kept going up I would have seen a fill come through and been told through. Basically the Market maker had free reign with my order. If he wanted my shares he could buy them for 20 minutes at $99.65 and if he didn't he could just leave them sitting and not allow me to cancel. How is this possible? What is Etrades role in this? Are they just the broker that sends the order or are they benefiting off of this situation that I described.

Mike

You don’t seem knowledgeable about the markets so it’s a little hard to feel sorry for you. I wish you no harm but you really have no right to be in that trade. It’s too big of a trade for someone with little experience plus you’re using a 3rd rate execution system. The first secret to learn in trading is realizing you cost yourself 2.5k and putting the blame anywhere else will only cause you to do it again.

I also want to explain to you no market marker had free reign over your order and it sounds silly you even saying that. First it’s NYSE that’s the specialist system. Next it’s after hours so it’s not even the specialist system it’s just ECN’s pretty much. No Ecn is blowing off your order if it’s a profitable trade for them. The order got frozen in etrade and odds are it did that because it wasn’t sure if your order was filled so to prevent you being short it freezes everything.

I hope you get your money back because I root for the little guy but I don’t see it happening.
 
Etard am inept.

I just had them confirm a cancel of a wire and they put it through anyway.

I only keep $ there out of inertia and some benefits that only the inept Etrade can provide.


Basically, they are clowns.


To the poster of this trade issue, you need to find out where you order was routed. If it went to the NYSE , they may have held your order.

If it went elsewhere, you should have been able to cancel.

You have to know what the rules are in order to hold Etard accountable.
 
To the OP.


Aside with all the problems regarding Etrade...You made the mistake of picking AUTO [a dark book, has nothing to do with ETRADE, they're an ECN that's quite convinient when you need to sell 500,000 shares of some volume less stock that has 300 shares at each price level and a 10 cent spread] for your excecution... which means that nobody would hit you because nobody would see you. :D next time when you want someone to hit your offer and you dont want to show your hand, try ARCA with a reserve to display only 100 shares. Works wonders.
 
Well... I use AUTO for my trading all the time, it has several advantages. However, Im not sure if Etrade has AUTO [the ECN] or if they only call it AUTO because is some automatic function... so you're probably right.
 
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