Platform-wise, do yourself a favor and switch to interactivebrokers.com. 1$ per contract, no minimum. Trade in any market, any currency, and receive the prevailing rate on multicurrency balances- so when the New Zealand dollar was yielding 8.25%, that was the rate paid out on my NZD balance (even though I live in Canada). Trades are routed instantly, complex option & future strategies fully supported… like scottrade for grownups.

There are other factors which come into play when you see a print on a stock. These could have something to do with your broker. The print that gets listed is shown from all market makers, but your broker may have routed your order to a particular market maker which didn’t have enough volume to fill the order at your price.

If you have ever seen NASDAQ Level 2 quotes in action, you can get an idea of how this works.

Have you ever called your broker and asked them why your order didn’t fill? Often a broker will be willing to work with their market makers and challenge a fill (or lack thereof). Or if you are a good customer, they may just give you the fill off their own book in the spirit of keeping the relationship solid. I wouldn’t challenge an order if you only see a print for the minimum (100 shares of stock or 1 option contract), but if a large execution went through, or if the execution prices remained below your limit price for a longer duration (multiple prints), you can probably make a decent argument that you were due a fill.

@DGI – Uh hesitating? That’s what I have been doing for the past year or so, building a dividend portfolio. Day trading was obviously a wrong choice of words (like explicative ). Actually, technically, it was wrong too. I did not buy and sell the same security on the same day. However, I did have to buy the options today before they expired, so the increase in blood pressure would be similar to day trading

What I do is to set a sell price for my dividend paying stocks typically defined by them not paying very much in dividends anymore. For instance WFC now pays 3.5% while GE pays over 5%. Once the stock gets closer to the sell price I write a call on it. If it does not meet the call, I get a little extra income (this can be up to 20% on top of the dividend a year!). If it meet the call, I got it sold.

So why did I roll it out?

Now it may happen that something unforeseen happens in the meantime (like the government deciding to bail out the market — I’m not good at predicting these rescues, this is the second time around when things were going great (for prudent me) until the government decides to mess with it) which causes me to reevaluate the underlying stock (the financial sector just got 15% better in two days!).

Thus I had to get rid of the short call options. The most profitable way to do that is really to sit and stare at the ticker with the finger on the trigger. It is something that has to be done (I seldomly do it. Last time was June 2007 as far as I remember). So no, I don’t rely on day trading other than to save maybe fifty bucks (although with today’s volatility it would have been much more – around $400 or so) instead of just going for the market price at a random time of the day.

Derivatives are simply a tool, but it’s not my main tool.

I do this because I never know at what price it will execute and I think that I might not be able to bet rid of the stock. How do you decide your limit price when selling?

Good luck! Let the wind blow in your way!

expletive (n.)
An exclamation or oath, especially one that is profane, vulgar, or obscene.