On Monday I had a sell order to get out of a position that was deep in the money and my Broker's platform was broken. I used their professional platform, it was totally useless and so I tried using their web-based browser, that failed to. I got on the phone and the Market is going wild that even my broker was not able to place my trade until it went from a $3000 gain to a $-280 loss. He said their system was broken, his frustration was obvious too. So the question goes, if your broker is not able to get your order out in to the Market, whose fault is this? It took 20 minutes to place a order in this account, are they liable for this if they have no emergency method to get me out of my trade? Has this ever happened with any of your brokerages and if so, what did they about the mess to make things right? I remember when Etrade allowed only a few members to use it's platform during its Beta stage and giving us a direct access phone number to a direct their top-tier stock and options brokers. If they did not have the answer to your question, they found it or found someone quick to help you. Etrade would fix problems, if their Market Maker or System broke, they would make you whole and take it in the chin themselves, that's how professional brokerages use to act, do they still behave this way? Don't you think the Trader needs a way out, they can get blown up in situations like these! Appreciate your time and help on this issue, I am kinda of pissed off about Monday's mess. Thank goodness I had several other brokerages to work with and create a boxed-position. What would you do?
Is your broker TradeKing? On rare incidents like these, which was blamed/caused on the air conditioning unit in their data warehouse...it's nobodies fault, per se. It says so...in the fine print...when you open your account...that rare incidents like these may/can happen.
You're wearing it. Sorry. If it was their issue they may offer you $280 to cover the loss. Remember that in a vol market, liquidity will thin out - especially in options, so it could be there were few quotes to hit/lift.
When you say "I had a sell order to get out that was deep in the money" I'm guessing you had a pre-existing order as a LIMIT order to sell as a GTC (good 'til cancel) order BEFORE the market was open? When the market opened limit down on the futures, many stocks were halted and not open for trading. Those that were open were only filling small "mom and pop" sub-100 share lots. The bid/ask spreads for several options were out of whack. So it really depends on what product you were trading (stock/options/futures) and whether or not any trades were actually executed at the time you were up +$3,000. I think most brokers have placed limitations in their fine print that says they are not responsible for data issues during periods of high market volatility. Therefore, if there was an actual market for your product at the open, where bids and asks were being filled, then they probably aren't responsible for your swing in P&L.