oops, meant to finish that. i thought about it for about 15 seconds, maybe as a backup broker. then i remembered: -> me having to explain to techies how to do a traceroute, and that the problem *wasn 't* on my ISP...even after explaining that i used to do sysadmin stuff for a living. -> techies promising to get back to me and never doing it. -> far too many techies, sales people, etc. departing watley, leaving the remaining people vastly overworked. (some of the people WERE good there) -> their short list wasn't very good, and sometimes wouldn't get in 'effect' until 10 am. -> the software would crash at all sorts of random intervals. -> their stock trades on the pink sheets. check out the "failure to file financial" statements. does that sound like a solid company? too bad; watley used to be one of the premier firms for active investors. i don't know whether it was their desire to grow too fast, or what, but i'd need to hear a LOT of success stories there to go back.
One of the first firms I traded at cleared through Penson and we had the same problem, the short list sucked. We didn't have bullets so every damn day you would have to check availablity. The internets were almost impossible to get and that is where all the action is. The worst part is sometimes you would forget to check and you would be watching the stock for 10 minutes, see a market maker hammering it and it would be comming up on the low of the day and you would be ready to help it get there. You hit the short key and "no shares available". Then the stock ofcourse goes to lows and drops 7 points. 7 points!! Yeah this was 99. It really sucked. Luckily the market was mostly going up back then. Anyway the firm was bought out and the very first thing they mentioned as the most immediate benefit was yep....no more penson for clearing. That was a long time ago though, have no idea about today. Things change fast in this industry.
I am a little bit surprise by this comment, because many large firms use them, as CyberTrader or some Terra Nova office whose are top players in the market. About 70% of Penson shares are available for short to Cyber customers, maybe these value have been change since some months, but these data was exact ealier this year. Also Penson clearing control over the half of this market in the USA. If you have some others comments about Penson, I am interesting to listen them, because many traders on this website have some relations with them.
Thanks for replies guys. I used ABW for a few years and liked them, but switched a couple of years ago to get lower RT fees. I never liked the Penson clearing, although I never had any problems. Their on line statements were very hard to understand, particualry if you did swing trades. The rates ABW is offering are very attractive but I guess I will wait and see.