I also encountered the dreaded "unable to confirm order" message trying to place market orders right after the market turned around on Tuesday. Although quotes were completely down, and performance was very sluggish, I was able to enter trades and got through to the confirmation page, but was unable to actually get an execution. I checked and re-checked my password, but the daily activity page just showed "order not placed". I was trying to buy NXTL at market, then about $22. This went on for half an hour. By the time I got a small order through on the express server, the price was back up to around $26. So I'm baffled by those who say they were able to trade all through the day. Were they able to get quotes? Was my experience specific to this one issue?
I'm disappointed, but realistic that I should expect some problems on a high-volume day. For the record, Fidelity's WebXpress site was completely unreachable. (even on regular volume days, it is very sluggish, with way too many sub-levels to navigate before you can actually place an order) Worse, their Touch Tone Trader phone system which I use as a backup was busy, so I couldn't get through to their automated phone trading system, nor a human broker. Things were so bad over there that I couldn't get through to them even well into the evening, and many of their mutual fund NAVs were not updated at all on their web site or through several other resources.
Since I was able to access some of Datek's screens, albeit sluggishly, I don't know if more servers would have cured the "unable to confirm order" problem that prevented me from trading. I agree with others' concerns that the free quote policy may be responsible for contributing to the unavailability of services on days like Tuesday. Can Datek respond with assurance that the volume of free quotes given out has never contributed to poor performance for the rest of us customers who actively trade with Datek? If there is any chance that this is the case, then I propose that Datek suspend free quotes on heavy-volume days, freeing up more bandwidth for their paying customers.
D. Kuspa |
