Anyone else get screwed on this one today? The stock took a nosedive in the morning down to 17.55. I bought some at 19.30 (doh!). The stock subsequently bounced back up and I sold out at 21.50. Nice little profit. About an hour goes by and I see my buy orders on the stock being erased from the trade execution window. So at this point I'm now short the stock at 21.50 and the stock fully recovers to 23.50. What started as a winning trade suddenly became a loser. I contacted IB for assistance. They informed me as follows: ________________________________________________ There is a trade in your account that is being manually adjusted. The original execution is as follows; All trades on stock PNP on the TSE at 21.30 or below are being adjusted to 21.30 This is adjustment is allowed per rule 10.9D The detail from this action will be reflected in the execution window as well as the account window this evening. _________________________________________________ Luckily this one worked out okay (although I would still have preferred the fat little profit I had made). I at least got the shares at 21.30. I didn't make anything but at least didn't lose. I'm very annoyed by this episode at two things: 1. Why the hell didn't the TSX halt trading immediately and BUST all the trades from the morning. Instead they chose to bust only certain trades. Very arbitrary and in my opinion, stupid. 2. The IB rep was not very helpful and RUDE. I don't use customer service very much and mostly use IB for trade execution only. In the instances that I do need help, I don't need to be lectured. The rep's response to me was that "you need to control your risk better". Gee thanks for the support. All I wanted was for the rep to look into the matter by contacting the exchange AND ADVOCATE ON MY BEHALF. If the rep couldn't do it, then push it up the ladder to someone who could. Save the lectures about managing risk for another time. All in all, a very disappointing experience. I've read before about this happening where one side of the trade is busted (someone who works for Don Bright I think got really screwed) but other trades are left standing. I don't know if it's worth a letter of complaint or maybe I should just be thankful I wasn't badly screwed.
I googled for "rule 10.9d" but couldn't find anything. Is this a TSE or OSC rule? I've seen orders busted, but if you get a fill on a limit order of $19.30, how can they come along and charge you more later? In many cases (like yours) I see how this is preferable to having the trade busted and suddenly finding yourself short, and I would not mind being given the option to take the adjusted trade rather than a bust, but to arbitrarily say "your order is going to cost you 10% more than you agreed to pay" doesn't make sense.