I have traded with Waterhouse extensivly over the past several years (over 200 trades in '97) and had few, although a couple of problems.
I have also learned some of the intricate ways their system works.
I will relate my experiences which hopefully will answer some of the questions of the last several posts.
1. Regarding the 20% rule for entering orders. yes, you can phone in the order to the electronic trading desk and get it "forced in" yes, they will give you the $12 rate.
2. Regarding the "pending status" "order sent to broker" This can occur for several reasons. One reason I was told is if you trade over a predetermined number of trades in a given day (normally 10, I think)
After several inquiries on this practice I was told that my local branch manager could approve to have this "trigger" number raised. I asked them to do this and have not had this problem occur again for
this reason.
3. A "pending" can also occur if the stock rises or fallen over a certain percent in one day. (troublesome with low priced stocks) I have not found a solution to this problem except either phone in the order and say you don't want it going pending and give me the $12 rate, do not trade the stock, or hope for the best.
4. The normal time for a stock trade to be reviewed, I am told, is under a minute. I also had an experience on a fast moving, low priced stock order which went "pending" After much complaining they gave me a better fill on the 1000 share order (it was 1/4 point better) waterhouse can find out an extensive amount of data about you trade if they so desire, such as exact time of order entry, trade, pending time, etc., to the second. You must be firm with them on correcting errors. Also, when you talk to them about correcting errors, GET THE NAME AND # OF WHOMEVER YOU TALK TO. This will help for disputes or having to check the audio records if they cant find the first dispute.
5. If you have a dispute, remember the branch manager is the first, NOT LAST line of defense. I spend 2 useless hours arguing with a branch manager and got nowhere. Had to go to corporate and argue and argue and hold my ground. I eventually won- ($2500 worth- I won,t go into details here but it has something to do with a day in October)
6. Waterhouse has a "range" of the time it should take for a pending order to get confirmed. If they think they screwed up and waited to long, they should give you a fill. This was actually a pretty easy battle with them. If I recall, I was "pending" 1-2 minutes but to me it was WAY TO LONG AND COSTLY.
7. I do not think that the number of shares is a factor for "pending" I have traded from 50-4000 share blocks and not gotten pending status.
8. I have also placed orders through their "dial-up" service and they exceeded the 20% rule (by a lot!) and they were accepted. Go figure!
Well, I hope this helped some of you and your questions.
I you need any more info just ask.
-DL |
