Forget about options and Scottrade, also forget abot Scottrade if you want to scalp, daytrade, or swingtrade. Lousy unreliable quotes, and slow exexutions robbing you on almost every trade. I tried to scalp stock with Scottrade lately, Scottrade scalped me instaed, while everybody in the trading room made money on the same called trades. I just switched from Scottrade to IB. As somebody mentioned it previously Scottrade is good if you want to buy a stock and hold it for a few years, but in this case and current markets you will probably lose money anyway, so I would say Scottrade is good for nothing.
Scottrade sucks. I bought some calls (can't remember on what) once, and right after that the contract price shot up. When it peaked, I sold. Then it dropped back, after I was filled - I think the transaction was something like 9.10 BUY/9.60 Sell. After the 9.90 peak, I sold and was filled at 9.60. The account posted and showed the increase. I got a call later that day from the local Scottrade broker (Mgr), who informed me that my fill was actually at 9.20, or something. I balked, of course, and their offer to me was . . . ten commission free trades. How does that make up for the hundreds of $ they screwed me out of? The moral here is, AVOID DISCOUNT BROKERS if you are serious!
Sorry, I meant they would hold the sell order if price peaked, then fill after it went down, and leveled for at least 10 seconds. I HATE you Roger Riney! I freakin' hate you! (probably reminds him of his ex-wives). p.s. That hairpiece has to go, bud . . ."The rug doctor is in the house, y'all"!
swcom, You obviously have a lot to learn about the markets before you go around bashing discount brokers. Read up on each individual option exchange rules or the NASD for that matter. It has nothing to do with your broker/dealer by the way....full-service, discount, or direct-access. But I guess ignorance is bliss, and if all else fails say you got screwed for hundreds of phantom $$. You probably had a fill off of auto-ex on a stale quote, the MM sent a request to the floor manager of the exchange your order was routed to, and the order was correctly filled at the prevailing market at the time. Scottrade was the messenger who had to deliver the bad news to you. (I don't work for them by the way) http://nasd.complinet.com/nasd/display/display.html?rbid=1189&element_id=1159000635 http://www.amex.com/ http://www.cboe.com/ http://www.iseoptions.com/ http://www.bostonoptions.com/ http://www.phlx.com/ http://www.pacificex.com/ And your story makes no sense whatsoever. You can't remember the calls or the exact execution price but somehow you were screwed out of hundreds of dollars? Do you think a full-service Merrill Lynch broker would have done better for you? The moral here is, DON'T BASH WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW.
And this?? C'mon man. It's NOT Scottrade holding the order. Did you bother to find out what exchange your order was routed to and what the bid/ask was on that exchange. Because you obviously are putting in market orders (since your aren't giving us details about your trades but complaining about Scottrade holding the order.) You have NO clue what's happening in the markets but you blame it on the broker WHO IS NOT TRADING FOR THEIR OWN ACCOUNT AND COULD CARE LESS ABOUT YOUR 5 CONTRACT ORDER.
Yes, I love to trade with a firm so small the FOUNDERS answer me back. That said, I agree with the props to thinkorswim and optionsxpress for that matter. They actually calculate the margin requirement for you online. However, IB has caught my attention as a direct access broker with excellent direct-routing capabilities. And Scottrade allows naked, but at a higher naked margin requirement than the Reg's require I believe. 30% instead of 20% for equities if I'm not mistaken.
Okay dad, I guess I'll go back to college . . . First, as I mentioned, ALL of their orders are routed to AMEX, based on the spread, and the LII. At least they had the worst spread at the time . . . Second, yes it was a market order. I did not know that I was bound by the constraint of full disclosure on a message board. Third, I have no clue what is happening in the markets? That is simply not true. I am not an insider (like yourself), so I do not have access to any much more information than the average Joe. Fourth, you mentioned that Scottrade could not care less about my order, so why are you coming to their defense? Why flame up somebody who is poking fun at ol' man Riney? Relax. You brokers can be so uptight. Spreadgod, go and grind ye axe elsewhere! p.s. stop yelling at me, you're scaring the neighbors.
Good work, swcom. One would think they should rename this forum to 'Elitist Trader' given the inflated egos of some of the posters on this board.
LOL. Yes, we are a very uptight bunch. Actually, I didn't used to be this way but everytime I see broker/dealers getting accused for things they didn't (and don't) do, I get angry. It's not that I'm defending Scottrade, it's that you can't just go around making accusations about things that are untrue. What I meant by they could care less about your order is that the orders are routed by security, not at the time of each individual trade. So one security may very well go to the AMEX everytime, while another goes to CBOE everytime. I did learn somethings by being an insider but trust me, I didn't learn about all of this by being an insider. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people on this board and I have learned a lot from them...who are not insiders. I know I have to work on my tone and I apologize if I came across as brash. EDIT **ELITIST (thanks CalPumper)