As mentioned in a previous thread, I had a stop market order entered on ESST for $19.50 to cover a short position of 600 shares and was filled at $23.20. This was $3.70 of slippage to me. Has anybody experienced a worse fill than this in their trading career? I've never come close in 15 years, so wondering if anybody else has had a worse experience? To top it off, I spun and went long 600 shares @ $23.20 (automatically) and lost another $2.40 before I noticed what had happened. After all was said and done my account swung $4,500 in about 25 minutes while I was away from my computer, all on an $11,000 investment.
Is this with a broker that you do not have direct access with? If you have direct access how are the stops executed ? on arca?
On Jan 2, 2001 after a 6-day rally RIMM collapsed for more than 21 pts on high volume. I shorted it the next day at the open, put a buy-cover stop a couple of pts above my fill, Greenspan came out with a "surprise" rate cut totally shocking the market (it was the first of the 11 rate cuts that year), they halted trading in RIMM for a short while (it was crossed where the bids were much higher than the offers), when it resumed trading I was filled about 10 pts above my stop. RIMM closed 17 pts above it's open that day in a complete reversal. Over the next two days it resumed it's collapse, falling more than 22 pts.
I remember that day well- a good friend of mine was long S&P's, and he saw his sell limit filled with thirty full handles of POSITIVE slippage- points in his favor. He saw a $20,000 profit become a $60,000 profit courtesy of Greenspan.
Wow...I just took a look at the 1min interval chart of ESST. Out of curiousity...after you took the large loss in the short position of ESST... why did you go long at/near it's peak (easier said in hindsight)? Those types of price spikes rarely last unless its an overall market event. I remember you posted earlier about this trade position. The only thing I can say...NEVER leave a trade position unattended. Thus, if you have to leave your computer...exit the position to protect profits. Something like your experience happen to me once many years ago and never again...I only lost about $1,500 but it could have been worst because I was sitting on a $4,500 loss but knew the spike couldn't hold and just waited for the price to slowly drift back down and then I immediately exited that short position... like ESST did today after peaking at 23.55 and begin drifting downwards. Also, out of curiosity...what "specific" trading strategy did you use to merit a long position after that loss in the short position? Your answer should help in your future trading...at least it did for me. Good night all. Nihaba Ashi
A popular direct access broker on these boards. I was routed to Island and filled for 500 shares, and Instinet for 100 shares at $22.55. Supposedly under their "best" routing. It was a market order, but it's hard to believe it took more than a minute to find a seller? I question whether the routing to Island should have been cancelled and liquidity sought rather than best price. The stops are executed off their servers. Magna, ouch! Probably took a while to work that one off.
I like to flip my trades around automatically, so it was done with a buy stop for 1200 shares (600 cover + 600 long). It wasn't a trade I'd voluntarily take if I had been there. I've done this for years and have many good experiences from flipping so this anomaly won't stop me, I'll just attend my trades from now on.
OUCH! That Best routing can kill you if you don't watch it while trading volatile stocks. I've gotten killed several times on Naz scalps on things like NVDA and QCOM (I no longer trade those beasts) b/c Best sent an order to ssoes, only to have some fuckin' MM stall the order. After the delay, the order was rerouted to an ECN...giving me a partial fill...and on and on and on and on.....next to selling heroin, trading has the biggest ups and downs there are. PS DDefina - any tips on flipping would be greatly appreciated. I've been trying to do it more often, but have been having a tough time setting stops and getting shorts in.
My worst slippage was also after a halt (7hrs)in December. Not ESST, a different stock. Slippage was about 10%. After it opened back up it skyrocketed with huge volume. I had to enter and cancel 4 orders before I got filled. I left each one live for about 60 sec before I cancelled and re-entered. It seemed to me that in all the panic my orders were being left by the wayside. Fortunately I was long on that one. All the shorts got murderized in that one too. The halt, and probabaly the short selling, was caused by an article in Barrons about questionable accounting practices. The magazine said something was wrong with the company. The SEC then said the company was ok. Magazine reports, analyst reports, geeez! I'll bet someones making money on it though.
Of course, $3.70 is peanuts compared to what a swing trader can face with an overnight price shock. I was hit with a $13 loss (about 30%) on an overnight earnings warning in an insurance company, no less, in my second week of short-term trading. Prior to that, as a longer term trader, I took an 800% hit when the Bre-X fraud was announced. I had sold some puts to try to pick up the stock at a cheaper price. Little did I know how cheap I would get it Fortunately I have always been very disciplined about position size.