i woke up today with negative account value and two margin calls, they gave me the account balance back and told me they're having problems right now but are working on it. Anyone had a similar problem like this today??
Hi All, I too am having trouble with MB Trading and/or Penson. I had a margin call when I carried no positions with margin. I also had zero buying power (all with 5 minutes to go before the bell). My account has been restored, but my account balance is low by $2,000 and Penson still shows a margin call on my account. I am going to give them today and tonight to straighten this mess out. I feel like Penson is a big part of this problem because they send account balances to MB Trading each night.
why do you guys bother with MB and Penson. go to assent,they do their own clearing and very rarely have problems.
Penson has the best clearing on the street. I get 4.25% on my money with them and their short list is the best. During the trading day right after i make a trade i log-in and penson has my net updated. At assent i paid to borrow stock with penson it's free any stock and the hardest to borrow. Iam able to borrow chnr last few days and word around has it hard to get. The anvil is good software but assent doesnt update during the trading day. Chnr is .20 to borrow at assent,THAT IS A SHAKEDOWN.
MB Trading's Navigator is decent, if simple software. But their infrastructure is just awful. Between their data outages and Penson's screw ups, they are not worth the trouble.
I had a login problem this morning before the market open. I called MBTrading. The told me to update my password and waited 10 minutes. I did so. After 10 minutes at around 9:35AM ET, it was still failed to log in. Then, I called them again. They said they server was down and would take sometime to recover. It came back about 20 minutes later. Everything was fine except their quot server was very slow all the day. And also the current position list did not update P&L promptly. I have been with MBTrading for over 3 years now. Only a few days they had a few major issues like this. Their software (MB Navigator) is not the best, but is ok to me.
I was lucky I think -- I tried logging in over and over near the open and got in finally missing maybe 10 minutes at the open. Like you I've been with them quite a while (4 to 5 years) and am happy 99% of the time. The technical glitches that happen occasionally happen with any retail direct access firm.