Cross trades (trading with yourself)

Discussion in 'Order Execution' started by benwm, Jul 22, 2010.

  1. benwm

    benwm

    Has anyone accidentally traded with themselves? I went to sell in a Eurex futures product and realized that it was my old bid that I had hit by mistake (and had forgotten to cancel). So I have a buy and a sell at the same price because of my sloppiness.

    I contacted my broker to report the mistake and wondered if the trade should be cancelled or if I would be punished. They spoke to Eurex and said there would be no fine and the trades stood, but that it should not happen again.

    Has anyone been hit by a fine or other punishment for something like this? Hopefully a one off on my part but there is always the small chance of it happening again (especially in the morning when I am half asleep). Is it something that I should be extra careful about preventing?

    Thank you in advance for any replies.
     
  2. This happens all the time, and different exchanges handle it in different ways. It's common practice in HFT to use many separate logins/sessions to a given exchange, and with many different trades looking at some of the same assets (think of the number of things that run off ES or SPY or front-month CL), sometimes it just happens inadvertently.

    They (the exchanges) only care if they see a pattern of this kind of behavior, which would of course be suspicious. You've nothing to worry about.
     
  3. benwm

    benwm

    Thanks brownegg for the assurances.
     
  4. JPope

    JPope

    Yea, I did it once in NG. You feel like an idiot and pay some unnecessary fees, but that's about it it seems like.
     
  5. Doesn't your software prevent that? That's one of the first things i learned to use with xtrader. they have a button you can can check in the properties page that prevents you from trading with yourself.
     
  6. benwm

    benwm

    Thanks for info, I'm just using IB TWS
     
  7. benwm

    benwm

    Did you tell your broker or did they contact you? Or did you keep it quiet?

    I fessed up to my broker as soon as it happened, in hindsight not sure if that was the wisest thing to do in, drawing attention to something that probably would never have been noticed anyway.
     
  8. dctdave

    dctdave

    Happened to me a few times.

    They once asked me for a written explanation and warned me not to do it again.

    After that it happened two times, both times I called them immediately that I made a mistake. Once the trade was cancelled the other time nothing happened.

    greetz. DCT