I propose America be restructured as follows: 1. Cars be manufactured that the instant a person passes the speed limit, the car self-destructs. 2. The moment a pedestrian puts his foot into the street upon a red light, he should instantly be ran over. 3. If a person is found drinking coke, should instantly loses ALL his health insurance coverage. 4. If a person is found stealing... (you know what they do in some places). I am not sure where to draw the line, but seemingly, this would be a good start to making better citizens and make America a better place to live for everyone.
Do the margin allowances by IB give one enough rope to swing with, or enough rope to get hanged? So the car self-destructs past the speed limit, yet on the other hand, we are given the freedom to buy sports cars.
It sounds to me like most liquidiations are the customer's fault, but just because the customer makes a mistake doesn't relieve the broker from its responsibilities. I believe that every broker does have a duty to liquidate in such a way as to avoid unnecessary loss to the customer. If it uses auto-liquidate software, it should be both designed and used with care.
I agree that it should be, but broker's tend to make decisions to protect themselves first, and then concern themselves with the client. I know we want a broker's liquidation policies to do so in a way least harmful to the client, but the problem here is that no statute, regulation or NASD policy requires it. That is why I feel that although OT's situation is unfortunate, there is no legal or arbitrative recourse but to simply move the account to another broker.
Is there any site, online, where there is a comparison of margin call/liquidation policies of online brokerages?
An auto liquidation could be triggered by something as mundane as typing an extra zero in the quantity column while placing an order in a hurry. I like IB, and have several accounts with them, but until they fix their auto-liquidation algorithm I am going to limit my positions to one leg per underlying. ToS, here I come.
i had a IB acount several years ago and was hit by a wrongful auto liqudate on a option spread. At first I was treated rudely by customer service who basically said nothing but "you got liquidated because you don't know what you are doing" I've been trading 8 years and my stat was well thought thru, so I kept calling them. After persisting for weeks management admitted the liquidation was wrong and offered a token amount of money. The amount they offered pissed me off even further and I closed my account and have not done business there since. I generally don't like to badmouth people or businesses but my experience with IB was nothing short of horrible. Bottom line I just don't think everything IB offers offsets the risk of how they deal with issues that inevitably come up.