Stock Markets Exposed
Stock market help, simple question about trading stocks...?
Okay, I'm sort of new to trading stocks, but now quite. I currently trade through Sharebuilder, even though I'm beginning to not like them so much. A lot of "fine print", if you know what I mean. Anyways, here's my problem: I bought a stock, 5,000 shares at .09 cents. I meant to buy at .05 cents, and that's what my confirmation said before I placed the order, but I didn't realize that the quote of the stocks are 20 mins delayed. Sharebuilder doesn't offer actual real-time quotes, imagine that. Anyways, my account ended up a couple of hundred dollars short, mainly because it still processed as 5,000 shares at $0.09. Anyways, I put a limit order in to sell all of the shares when they hit $.010, low and behold, it hit 0.10 today, but my shares haven't been sold. Called SB, and they said for large orders, it could take a couple of days over a few different trades, and that I would be charged $11.95 for each trade. Is there a better place or way to do these types of trades? Thanks!
Public Comments
- You bet there is! That's outrageous. You need to find a reputable online broker providing "real-time quotes" and/or "zero slippage". When the shares are of such low value, 5000 shares is not a large order and should be able to be easily accommodated. I suspect you simply chose a share that doesn't have a high turnover. Volume of trade (liquidity) is a factor that you should consider when placing your trades - you want to ensure that the daily volume is hundreds or thousands times larger than your intended trade. So if you plan to buy 5,000 shares, I wouldn't place the trade unless daily volume is >500,000 shares. Apart from your order being filled in "chunks", the other risk of trading shares that have low turnover is that the price quotes are less meaningful - the price can change dramatically between sporadic trades. But if something is selling constantly, the price movements are much smoother. Good luck!
- First of all, you've either typed multiple typo's in your question, or you're lost. You said you place a sell order at one penny (You typed $.010). Plus, you revealed your lack of understanding of the trading process. Question to you: What are you doing? Why are you involved in something of which you have limited understanding and sophistication? You are getting your head handed to you, all for $11.95 a trade (?)
