Well that was an easy decision. I didn't hear one negative word about Echo, but I heard from more than " a half dozen" traders about marking errors at bright. Some say they've been dinged 100's of dollars in a day to more, to others complaining about if you try to dispute the charge they charge you again. To another stating that the manger who created the software to deduct the illegal shorts actually gets part of the fine, nasty stuff. Sounds like some shady things going on a bright, I want no part of that. thanks for all the feedback guys.
Well, hmm.... I think it would be pretty "shady" to simply allow traders to violate felony fraud rules (as marking errors have become since last Summer vs. "slap on the wrist" types of things). We choose to keep our regulatory history intact, and not risk the "many for the few" (very few actually). And, as I mentioned before, the handful of violators do pay, just as I feel violators should be responsible for themselves. And, we have worked really hard to modify some of the trading programs (where the errors seem to occur) so that there are very few any longer. And, yes, if we have to pay someone to research something, we may charge a few bucks. All in all, this has pretty much become a non-event, which is how we like it. All the best, Don
Can you elaborate Don? Felony? We can all make mistakes sometimes, especially on software that allows it.
Echo would charge for marking errors, they used to, but maybe a few years back (not sure exactly when it was) they made a change to their software where if you mark it wrong when you send the order it changes to the right mark for you. If you have shares and mark it as short their software sends it as sell, if you don't have shares and mark it as sell they send to the exchange as short. That cut out the errors. I would imagine if you find a way to get one off the wrong way they will still have to penalize you something to be compliant as Bright does. I've played with it a bit and have been unable to get one to go in marked wrong, they did a good job with it.
Back when they had the "DO NOT SHORT" list of Financials, the rules were changed so that illegal shorts or even illegal long sales could be construed as a Felony. "They" were looking for scapegoats, IMO (personally, not Bright Trading, etc. standard disclaimer).... This is when we had to actually Pre-locate those particular stocks vs. simply having a pop up come up for "hard to borrow" stocks. (I can't find the whole thing, but here is a portion) Rule 10b-21 Short Selling Anti-Fraud Rule The Commission adopted Rule 10b-21, which expressly targets fraudulent short selling transactions. The new rule covers short sellers who deceive broker-dealers or any other market participants. Specifically, the new rule makes clear that those who lie about their intention or ability to deliver securities in time for settlement are violating the law when they fail to deliver. This rule also becomes effective at 12:01 a.m. ET on Thursday. We used to have "days" to deliver shares, but at this juncture, we had to actually locate the stock before shorting etc. for "immediatel delivery" .... The last 8 months or so have been a bookkeeping nightmare. But, we have no choice but to comply. And, we had a very few, mostly with automated programs, who were having trouble. Still working out a few bugs, but very few are affected these days. edit: We have the Illegal Short Sale Preventer that can be turned on to prevent all this...but, since we have so many traders who like to trade the opens, they might need to have it shut off. For example...you're long 1000 GE pre market, you want to sell it Long Opening ONly, but you also want to send in 2000 Short Opening Only...the preventers would not allow it....some re-wrote software, some are just really careful with how they place orders. edit #2, LOL: (I keep reading the above posts, LOL). What tends to happen is that traders will be long, send in an order to sell long, up 20 cents of something, then decide to hit a bid, and not cancel the other order... everyone is a lot more careful these days. All the best, Don
are marking errors the same penalty per firm usually? any break down on marking error costs? also Bright vs echo on cost per share. is Echo cheaper then bright on cost per share or Bright cheaper? both require series 7 I believe? for <500,000 shares >500,000 shares and greater then 1,000,000 shares per month?
hey don, do you have an office in NYC? this may be asking to much but it would be nice to see a list of cities that have Bright offices and a list of cities that have Echo offices? I know some offices are invite only etc but curious what cities have offices. no trading tomorrow though.
any particular reason why you've narrowed it down to those 2? i trade for a firm that's pretty good. i would say bright is a lil better but my firm doesn't require a series and the fees are a lot less.