I placed a market order to cover 6000 shares of QQQ at 12:42 today. QQQ was at 36.87 I clicked the review order screen and did not get a fill, I wait 30 seconds and still no fill. (This is a market order OK?) another 15 seconds go by and click again, this time one partial fill for 1000 shares at 36.88, I click again thinking it might fill all the way on the next click, but NO, two more partial fills for 200 and 600 shares 36.98. Then after another long wait while the market moves against my position the final fill comes in at 36.91. Does this smack of manipulating the order flow? SECOND TRADE: I placed a stop loss order at 36.42 at 10:54. The QQQ hit 36.42 at 10:55. For 2 minutes I checked the review order screen and no updates regarding this trade were shown, finally after 2 minutes it was shown as filled at 36.37. When you look at the individual ticks it clearly shows trades going through during these two minutes at 36.42 36.41 36.40 39.39 and less. There was absolutely no sudden and precipitous drop in price. A market order could and should have been filled properly at close to 36.42. 36.41 was totally feasible in these kinds of conditions. Instead it got filled two minutes late and at the absolute lowest possible price of 36.37 a full 5 basis points below the stop loss. Manipulated trade?
I just opened account with Xoomtrade. Commissions way higher than at Freetrade but when I look back through my trading log I have lost more in slippage than commissions would ever have been and also lost trading opportunities because their system is so slow. Get what you pay for, hey? I would definitely not recommend this broker to anyone.
Yup... stop routing MARKET ORDERS to Amex. You are bending over and handing the specialist the KY while yelling "pound my ass hard please" peace axeman
Funny how you got filled above the high of the day? Todays high was 36.86. BTW, Freetrade is not for scalpers. For trades longer term than a few minutes I have found Freetrade to be very good. Ever consider using a limit order? Many times it does take a few minutes to show the fill, but I have found mostly they are filled immediately but it just takes a while to show it sometimes.
not sure if you are ready ... most people should not touch futures with a 100 foot pole. but if you are going to swing around a few thousand QQQ's at a time .... you can trade 1 + NQ's for far less slippage and poss. even better tax treatment good luck
====================== Wouter; My written records also show QQQ high of $36.86 on 4-15; dont know Freetrade, but i would politely ask the manager for an adjustment to keep your business. Esignal has time & sales; but Freetrade should also & may mail it to you ''free ''also. Freetrade may be right on the other price; havent checked time & sales. Most of my trades are swing/position , stocks /occasional derivative; had a market order take about 2 hours to execute with OptionsXpress last year. So with unusual 2 hours market order on that QQQ derivative ; they could have goofed it up, but they gave me a good sale price. The plans of the diligent tend only to advantage-Solomon, trader king.