Yes, I have accounts with both Etrade and Ameritrade, (formerly Ceres). I have had no problems with Ameritrade and love their
account positions, which updates your profit or loss from the previous
closing, whenever you access it. My story with Etrade is a potential time bomb and I believe sharing it will save someone else.
I had four Oct40 puts on Starbucks that were to expire last Friday.
I had no buying power due to the market decline and Etrade stated
that they would not execute an order without funds in the account.
So when I went away Friday I thought, fine, they will just credit my
account at the end of the day because the puts were in the money.
WRONG... Etrade elected to excercise my puts and placed me short
400 shares at 40 even though the stock was at 37. Trouble is, I
was not informed until this morning and then I was told that I had
to answer a $5000 margin call to cover the short position by noon
tomorrow. Meanwhile the stock is back up to $39. I cant believe
they need commissions that bad, why else would they do this without
at least calling me for approval? I luckily was able to write a check
to avoid liquidation, but how can they violate their own rules and
put a client in such a position? Of course if I didnt pay and they
liquidated, they would charge yet another commission. The sad
part is someone including Etrade is really going to get hurt with
this procedure and it will be bad for Online trading in all companies
and I hate to see that, so beware...Yankee Gil |
