To: Roger A. Babb who wrote (8099 ) 5/2/1998 1:33:00 AM From: Shoe Read Replies (1) | Respond to
**OFF-TOPIC** Roger, I had the opposite occur with another broker, and would like your opinion. I had a limit buy order (by phone) on a NASDAQ stock in from well before the open, at the price where it happened to open, but 10-12 min. into the session the order showed on my screen as still open, with a limit price of zero -- looked like a mistake. In the meantime the stock fell like a rock and I entered a new order at market -- they both came back right away as filled at the same price, nearly 10% below my ill-considered limit. But later in the day the broker "corrected" the report to show that I had been filled on the first order at my limit price, and when queried claimed the MM had filled me at the open, but had sent a late report with a wrong price, which just happened to be the same as the market price at the time of the report. Needless to say, this seemed quite suspicious to me (the "erroneous" report could not have been a typo, none of the digits or fractions in the stock price were the same!). It did occur to me that if I were not at risk that an order would be filled late at an increased price (as evidently happened to you at Datek), I would feel marginally better about not knowing whether my order really had been filled before the price fell, but that if I would have had no recourse if the broker had reported a delayed fill at a 10% higher price, then the game would be rigged against me. When I asked the broker in writing what it would do in a situation like yours, the response I received was:
