It has nothing to do with whether or not the commission is too high and I'm not asking for them to bend - which I assume you mean I'm trying to get a lower commission. I don't care about the commission.
I didn't say anything about lowering the commissions. But at what point do you start helping customers and giving up money? Plus the commissions are lowered to get you filled. And the broker is not going to make the market if there is no offerings. Companies will lower commissions for certain customers or "work" an order, it is done for clients who have seven plus figures in their accounts. Cause a bigger trader, losing them would hurt them.
I think we'd need an actual lawyer to answer this question. Because you're totally right -- from the broker's standpoint, if it's not illegal, this is a completely obvious move. I can only think of one reason not do it if it's not illegal and that's training your clients to find the break-even point where you won't make the trade, and then trade at that price point. Thus effectively lowering the commission rate.
Not really, they are relying more and more on selling order flow and not commissions. Especially since you're dealing with Ameritrade.
What was the stock? Was it GE, MSFT, AAPL ? Was it thinly traded, perhaps a stock that is not widely available? You put in a buy limit order at say.......10.00 and the price was 10.01. If you already agreed to pay a max of 10.00 why would you think they would buy it for you at 10.01? If they did that for everyone 100k a day, they would go bust. Even if you only purchased 100 shares it would be $1. They only charge 7.95 for a trade. It's not like they get rich off one trade. I imagine there are also SEC rules against this.. If it was done on a larger level it could be construed as insider trading or money laundering.