The chances of your order being bucketed in this day and age are pretty slim. Computerized audit trails and sequential trading cards have in the last ten years made it much easier for the exchange to figure out whether an order was in a brokers hand before or after he traded at that price for his own account. In fact at the CME "dual trading" is banned altogether. Since the FBI sting in '89 here in Chicago, where 40 some guys were booted off the floor for life, and a few actually did time in club fed (some for pretty innocuous stuff) the message has gotten through loud and clear.
How do you explain the above scenarios? Especially #1 -- where they trade me a limit sell below the limit price, and then make up the difference? Who ever heard of such a thing? Say the price had gone up to 4484, and then come back down; do you think for one moment that they would have filled me @ 4470 and then offered, unasked, to make up the difference? It simply doesn't make sense. Those of you who have traded the floor: How difficult would it be to either 1) leave a ticket blank and fill the details in later at floor-trader's discretion? 2) Change the account # on ticket to different account. Thanks for all the replies. Hofferino
I remember, long ago, I was trading T-Bonds. Had an order to buy on a STOP. Well, it seems the exchange posted an addendum to the high of the day, well after the fact. I.e. they figured out after the fact that the market had traded 1 tick higher than they thought it did, thereby triggering my stop. In the meantime, the market had tanked, coming down a full point (I think at the time that was something like $3,000/contract). Now, this would have been an opportunity to absolutely rape me -- here they have my buy stop, the market traded a full point lower.... I can just see it now: Hofferino; you were filled on a buy at 1 tick below your stop -- positive slippage -- aren't you happy. In the meantime the market tanked. What actually happened (remember: the bonds aren't traded in NY!)? I get a call from my broker: What do you want us to do -- this is the situation, we just received notice of a change in the high of the day, triggering your buy stop; "Do you still want the trade?" Now that's what I call honest!! [BTW -- I took that trade anyway, and bought 1 point lower than my stop, and still got killed. The system said buy, so I bought...] Hofferino
In scenario #1 it appears that the market traded through your 4484 offer and then broke. The floor broker probably missed selling the 84's, i.e. forgot, was busy, clerk error ect. He then finally executed your sale down at 4470 and OWES you an adjustment. Very common! As far as scenario #2, not at all likely. Your order has YOUR account number written on it by the phone clerk at the desk. Once again there is an issue of time stamps and sequentially numbered orders. I also doubt your cotton broker shot JFK.
Hofferino, I've had nothing but bad experiences with N.Y. markets. Between constant excess slippage, not getting filled on limit orders that trade at my price for several minutes, and not getting fills on my orders for hours - (and sometimes not until after the close) while begging my broker every ten minutes to call down to the floor, I finally gave up and stopped even trying to trade there. Perhaps when the e-mini energies have traded for a while, it may be a little better to trade those markets, but I have a feeling that somehow they'll still find a way to screw traders. I've hoped for electronic trading in the energies for years. I think the only way that the NY floor traders know how to make money is to steal it, and if they had to compete with off-floor traders on a level playing field (or at least an honest one), they'd all be put out of business.
P.S. Even if it's not intentional or malicious, their service still sucks. It's the same result either way and was way too tough for me to trade. Better to find markets that are more compatible to your stress levels and style of trading, IMO.
Hoff, GATrader has it right. You cannot trade these markets with some phone broker who sends it to a desk on the other side of the building from the pit. You need to either be calling to a desk that is right next to the pit, where you get an instant fill, or you need a broker who will call his desk right next to the pit and get an instant fill while you're on the line. Putting in a limit order and leaving it is ok for long term position trading, but not trading. You have to know instantly when you've been filled. My understanding is all NYMEX limits are not held. I could be wrong, but I almost always go market on the crude. The spread is usually a penny and it's worth that to me to know that I got filled. My broker is an animal who screams obscenities at the hapless phone clerk who takes the order and gives them a reaming if he doesn't like the fill. Maybe it's all for show but it makes me feel good.