What are the best retail brokers that offer after hours equity trading and why? A buddy of mine who trades equities with TD Ameritrade had a position which would have yielded him a real sweet profit but when he called his broker to offset the trade they said he could not offset it. He's asking me what broker to go to. My equity accounts are passive long term investing; I don't trade equities after hours. I trade futures. Any advice will be appreciated. thanks!
Aymore feedback on this? Looking for a good after hours broker for a friend of mine who trades retail about 5,000 shares at a time many 10-30 times per week. One trader suggested IB. Just wondering what else there is to look at. His problem is that his broker won't allow him to offset after hours a position he took on during regular market hours. He's looking to jump ship. thanks!
So he wants per order pricing versus per share pricing? I know Schwab has extended hours trading but I don't know how many routing options they have (i.e., are you only permitted to route to ISLD, and does this even matter to your friend?). http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab...hours_trading?refid=P-1062828&refpid=P-997323 There must be others. TD Ameritrade has extended hours: http://www.izone.com/hours.html
I don't think money is the issue here; hence pricing is moot. He is with TD Ameritrade today and they're the ones who screwed him last week. He was long 5k shares LEH @ $4.25 right before the close and it traded over $5 after hours the same evening. He tried to put on an offset order and it would not go through. He called and they gave him some bullshit excuse as to why he could not offset that trade after hours. I have had brokers before who had after hours trading but would not allow traders to offset a trade they got into during regular market hours. Meaning you can buy then sell after hours and that's fine, but if you buy 10,000 shares ABC on Tuesday at 11am and it goes up 20% Thursday evening at 5:30 you can't benefit from that; you have to wait until the next regular market hours to trade. Sucks. Maybe that's what TDAmeritrade is doing; not sure.
That seems really bizarre. When you say an "offset order," do you mean closing out the position or putting on a box on in another account? Just curious, what was the reason TD Ameritrade said they couldn't fill his order? Anyway, if the commission is not a concern I would go with IB because you can direct your orders anywhere you want which can be helpful in extended hours. A 5,000 share order will be $25 at IB. Other places to check out might be MBTrading or TradeStation.
I thought it was bizarre as well. He just wanted to close out the long position he had (which means he wanted to sell 5,000 shares LEH). I don't know what their excuse was for not letting him trade, but they didn't let him trade and instead of making > $5k he ended up loosing about $1.3k on the trade. That's enough in and of itself to jump ship when your account is >$6k less then it would be if the broker was not a dick. Thanks for the suggestions on where to look. I'll pass it on to him. Now he'll have 3 to pick from with the 2 you suggested. thanks again!
They did it to him again today. The good news is he was on the right side of the trade this time and make >$3/ share on 5k shares. But he's still done with TD Ameritrade. He's going to check out the three companies recommended by the traders on here. Many thanks to everyone who contributed (except that spammer who must be on another planet if they think someone's going to bring them business when they irritate us like that).
IB offers orders being filled from 4 am till 8 pm eastern time pre and after market orders. You just have to specify if you want it pre or after market before you put the order through. I just got out of being long citi yesterday @16.2 around 5 30 pm ( so I know you will have no problems with them