*OT* WARNING - I have a Signature (frequent trader) account at Schwab and made a trade the other day in my wife's IRA account. I bought 100 JDSU at market when the screen indication was 156 1/4 and dropping by 1/8 every time I refreshed the screen. Well, about 5 minutes later I got a confirmation that I had bought at 157 11/16!!
I got on the phone and asked for time and tape. The guy said I had actually gotten a good fill! Somehow he mentioned what the current price was, and I said "hold on just a minute!" and said "no, the price is $xxx". Well, it turns out that their main quote supplier was not feeding the market info fast enough and fell behind. I asked who was going to cover me for the difference, and he told me that the quotes were not their responsibility, but that of a third party.
To make an already long story short, quotes are "indicators" as my friends at Schwab like to say. I was royally pissed and still am, thinking that if I had done this in my account the trade would have been for 2,000 shares (x $1.5 = $3,000). Anyway, they covered $100 for me in the form of comission credits, but they have me scared to use market orders for the infrequent times when I chose to do so.
Comments appreciated.
Jeff Smith |
