Yes, you can get your order in just a bit above the inside and see it pop up as ISLD on a level II market makers screen. The tricky bit is getting a confirmation back through your browser, firstly to make sure they got your order - then you need to get another "activity" screen to see if it was executed; which may take at least 2 or 3 reloads of that page until you see the execution; of course, by this you are getting frazzled trying to get info from Datek on the one hand and at the same time trying to keep an eye on the stock - when you finally find out that you've actually got the stock in your portfolio, invariably the stock is miles away from where you bought it - normally in the wrong direction, now you sit thinking "why did I do that?" anyway, now you've got to make a decision and go through the whole thing again to complete the cycle. Bit of a sham really to call this day trading.
It only goes this good assuming your internet connection doesn't choke, your PC doesn't freeze, Datek servers are responding, and you are using the "express" datek servers, not the normal one that involves confirmation pages between every step.
Frankly, I wonder if its worth saving a few bucks to go through all this - I reckon Dateks $10 fee translates into a few hundred dollars in many cases - I'm just about to jump ship to MB Trading which seems to be a better deal from around $18.95 for up to 2,000 shares. And they throw in the level II quotes too...
However, I think Datek are working on something snazzy to get around all these problems ... but I hear its all hush, hush...
See ya! |
