Share Dealing Discussion Area

db2boy

Hi folks,
Etrade are not taking on new US equities accounts at the moment. I wish to do some trades, who would you recommend as an online broker please?

Thanks

Ant

sabretoothtigger

Alot of brokers will deal american shares afaik. If you say the symbols I can check iii if you like

tradetime

Yes iii will allow purchase of US shares, as long as the average daily volume of the stock is over 50,000, I think it was. I gave them a long list before I opened an account, so you can call them or e-mail them and check.

mills_scoobygang

Is there a slightly more exacting timeframe for when the article about trading shares will be updated. Im very interested to here the researchers opinions compared to the likes of moneysupermarket.

Thanks

Bookgoose

My account was one of those transferred to TDW from HB, and the experience has been far from happy.

In early September, barely a week after the transfer and after I'd used TDW only to make one small buy, I tried to transact a sell at market rate.

Instead of executing as requested, they did a negotiated sale at several points below the market price. I rang to complain, and their customer service rep told me they'd had no choice, because of the size of my holding.

I checked the market trades, and this just didn't ring true: similar sized trades had gone through either side of mine at the prevailing price. I pointed this out in an email, and got a reply stating, curiously, that their rep hadn't lied to me (I hadn't said she had!) and that they were satisfied with their conduct.

There was just no way I could trust them with further trades on this basis, and so I applied to transfer the account (ironically to Sharecrazy - I am far from delighted with HB for introducing me to TDW!) ASAP.

It took TDW four weeks to transfer the account - weeks of high market volatility during which my portfolio was effectively held hostage - and they deducted £250 from my cash balance for the privilege, without even bothering to inform me about the deduction.

So, with the shortfall on the one sell trade they bodged, I have effectively been charged £300+ by TDW for transacting one buy, bodging one sell, fobbing me off with an explanation they accept was untruthful and holding my portfolio in limbo for a month.

They are quite cool about this, and clearly feel their service has been okay. Maybe that's because this is par for their course?

I'm taking legal advice to see what my recovery options are next week, but whatever, I would just warn fellow small investors to be extremely wary of this firm!:mad:

tradetime

Obviously I am tempted to ask what the stock was, and what the position size was, but I realize that is rather an intrusive question, so I won't, but will have a stab at shedding some light on what may have happened. I would also point out I have no particular liking for TD Waterhouse, as I transferred my ISA from them back in May after a string of arguments resulting from inaccurate statements by their staff.

However, that said, if you are attempting to buy a large position in a thinly traded stock on a market order, then negotiating a price for a block trade with a Market Maker would not have been an unreasonable course of action for them to take, the alternative could have been much more costly. I am assuming when you say "Several points below" you are referring to several pence?

jimmyss1

tradetime wrote: »

However, that said, if you are attempting to buy a large position in a thinly traded stock on a market order, then negotiating a price for a block trade with a Market Maker would not have been an unreasonable course of action for them to take

If an online market quote is unavailable, shouldn't the broker just decline a quote and/or give the option of proceeding with a negotiated trade?
I know I would be rightly !!!!ed off if a broker proceeded with a negotiated trade without my permission. I didn't think they were allowed to do this?


Anyway, as an aside, I'm also a recent transfer from HB to TDW, and I'm finding their service appalling. I've done about 10 trades since the transfer and there have been many problems with these trades. The customer service people seem clueless to offer any help, and try to place the blame on the user, insisting everying is fine on their side. In all the problems I've encountered with them, they eventually conceded it was a 'system error' on their part and it won't happen again. I'm just finding the amount of errors in their system quite unbelieveable! I've traded through 3 other brokers before and never before encountered so many problems (and incompetent staff) in such a short space of time!
Anyway, I'm now gradually selling my holdings with them and transferring the cash to other brokers (as I don't want to be held up for weeks on end with any share transfer).

sabretoothtigger

Was it not possible to set a limit order on the price, give me this amount of money for my shares or dont bother kind of sale

Bookgoose

If HB couldn't sell as agreed, they did nothing and asked you to phone them. TDW did the exact opposite! Which is common sense??? So yes, I could have set a limit, and would have done had I realised I had entered a common sense free vacuum - unfortunately, it was my first (and only!) trade with TDW, so I didn't know.

And the trade was very small - just under 50 000 VGMs. In that respect, I thank my lucky stars, as it would have been the smallest of several trades that day if they'd not mucked it up. Things could have been a lot worse for me, and I really thank God I'm out of their hands!

sabretoothtigger

http://www.digitallook.com/news/3041672/Week_Ahead_Tesco_Rank_BoE_rate_decision.html

Week Ahead: Tesco, Rank, BoE rate decision

Date: Friday 02 Oct 2009

UK supermarket giant Tesco issues interim results on Tuesday which will be complicated by the inclusion for the first time of Tesco Personal Finance as a consolidated entity.

Broker Charles Stanley is forecasting profit before tax of £1,450m on sales of £28,250m, versus comparative figures from a year earlier of £1,453m and £25,638m respectively.

It expects like for like sales in the 6 months to 21 August to have grown by 4%, a sub-par performance in comparison with its major sector peers, which Charles Stanley puts down to a slow-down in non-food sales growth and Tesco’s aggressive price cuts, which have had a deflationary effect on sales value.

On Thursday the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will announce its interest rate decision and, as has been the case for several months, it would be a major surprise if the MPC were to make any decision other than no change.

Similarly, the size of the £175bn quantitative easing (QE) programme is expected to remain the same, but there may be a change to the interest rate the Bank of England pays on commercial banks’ reserves; Bank of England governor Mervyn King has publicly contemplated cutting the deposit rate as a means of discouraging banks from hoarding cash that he’d rather see pumping around the UK economy.

Casinos and bingo outfit Rank makes an interim management statement on Thursday and will be seeking to make it two upbeat trading statements in a row, which would make for a relatively rare pleasurable experience for long suffering shareholders who have seen the shares lose two thirds of their value over the last five years.

At the half-year stage the company said underlying pre-tax profits rose to £24.7m in the six months ended 30 June compared with £17.6m a year earlier. Analysts expected a profit of around £20m.

Investors will be looking for an update on the company’s debt burden. At the end of June it stood at £208.1m, down from £226.5m at the end of 2008.

[U][COLOR=Blue][B]
Monday October 05[/B][/COLOR]
[/U]   
INTERIMS 
Waterman Group 

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
ARM Holdings, Churchill China, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group, JPMorgan European Inv Trust Growth Shares, JPMorgan European Inv Trust Income Shares, Novae Group 

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
ISM Non-Manufacturing (US) (15:00) 
PMI Services (EU)  (09:00) 
PMI Composite (EU) (09:00) 
PMI Services (GER) (08:55) 
PMI Services (FRA) (08:50) 
Producer Price Index (EU) 
Retail Sales (EU) (10:00) 
Unemployment Rate (JPN) (00:30) 

EGMS 
Cryo-Save Group 

AGMS 
PZ Cussons 

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
PMI Services (09:30) 

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
Scott Wilson [U][COLOR=Blue]

[B]Tuesday October 06[/B][/COLOR][/U]   

INTERIMS 
Tesco 

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
Hiscox, Holders Technology, XP Power 

FINALS 
Animalcare Group 

AGMS 
Equest [URL="http://www.digitallook.com/news/3041672/Week_Ahead_Tesco_Rank_BoE_rate_decision.html?&username=sabrehbos&ac=211395&tc=#"][/URL] Balkans Ltd., Namibian Resources 

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
Airsprung Furniture, Synergy Healthcare 

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
Industrial Production (09:30) 
Manufacturing Output (09:30) 
NIESR GDP est.  [U][COLOR=Blue]

[B]Wednesday October 07[/B][/COLOR][/U]   

INTERIMS 
Walker Greenbank 

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
Abbey Protection, Drax Group, Lancashire Holdings, Randall & Quilter Investment, Rathbone Brothers 

INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE 
Admiral Group, Adventis Group, AG Barr, Amiad Filtration Systems, Balfour Beatty, Braime Ord, Brammer, Cello Group, Cenkos Securities, Charles Taylor, Dealogic, Dillistone, Fisher (James) & Sons, Forth Ports, Gaming VC Holdings, Hydrogen Group, Judges Scientific, Keller Group, Kingfisher, M. P. Evans Group, Martin Currie Portfolio Trust, Matrix Income & Growth 4 VCT, Motivcom, Nationwide Accident Repair Services, Octopus Apollo VCT 1, Octopus Apollo VCT 2, Octopus Eclipse VCT 2, Octopus Protected VCT 1, office2office, Pinewood-Shepperton, Primary Health Properties, Public Service Properties Investments, S & U, Spirax-Sarco Engineering, StatPro Group, Ukrproduct Group, Weir Group, WPP Group 

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE 
Africa Opportunity Fund Ltd. 

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE 
Henderson Global Property Companies Ltd., Investors Capital Trust 'A' Shares, Investors Capital Trust 'B' Shares, Merchants Trust 

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
Gross Domestic Product (EU) (10:00) 
Household Consumption (EU) (10:00) 
Gross Government Spending (EU) (10:00) 
Factory Orders (GER) (11:00) 
Consumer Credit (US) (20:00) 

FINALS 
Coburg Group, Imperial Innovations, Sportingbet 

EGMS 
Hawtin 

AGMS 
M&G Equity Inv Trust Capital Shares, M&G Equity Inv Trust Income Shares, M&G Equity Investment Trust Units 

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
BRC Shop Price Index (10:30) 
Nationwide Consumer Confidence (00:01) 

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
Gartmore Fledgling Trust, Pennon Group, PZ Cussons 

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE 
Admiral Group, Advance Developing Markets, Close Brothers Group, Daejan Holdings, Glasgow Income Trust, JPMorgan Emerging Markets Inv Trust, Pacific Horizon Inv Trust, Shires Smaller Companies Trust, System C Healthcare, TR European Growth Trust 
[U][COLOR=Blue]
[B]Thursday October 08[/B]
[/COLOR][/U]   
INTERIMS 
C&C Group, Ted Baker 

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
888 Holdings, Amlin, Antofagasta, Croda International, Eurasian [URL="http://www.digitallook.com/news/3041672/Week_Ahead_Tesco_Rank_BoE_rate_decision.html?&username=sabrehbos&ac=211395&tc=#"][/URL], GlobeOp Financial Services, Molins, Shire Plc, Standard Chartered 

TRADING STATEMENT 
Rank Group 

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE 
GlaxoSmithKline 

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
ECB Interest Rate (EU) (12:45) 
Industrial Production (GER) (12:45) 
Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30) 
Wholesale Inventories (US) (15:00) 
Current Accounts Total (JPN) 
Bankruptcies (JPN) 

FINALS 
Sandvine Corporation 

EGMS 
South African Property Opportunities 

AGMS 
Electric & General Inv Trust 

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
BoE Interest Rate Decision (12:00) 

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
888 Holdings, Brambles Ld, Mid Wynd International Inv Trust 
[COLOR=Blue][U]
[B]Friday October 09[/B]
[/U][/COLOR]   
INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
Computacenter, Dunedin Income Growth Inv Trust, Elderstreet VCT, Elementis, Evolution Group, Friends Provident Group, Healthcare Locums, International Public Partnerships Ltd., Lincat Group, Michael Page International, Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, Nestor Healthcare, Regus, ROK, WSP Group 

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE 
British Assets Trust, Quorum  Technology Fund Ltd. 

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
Balance of Trade (US) (13:30) 
Trade Balance (GER) (07:00) 
Consumer Prices Index (GER) (07:00) 
Industrial Production (FRA) 
Manufacturing Output (FRA) 
Machine Orders (JPN) 

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 
PPI Input Prices (09:30) 
PPI Output Prices (09:30) 
PPI Core Output Prices (09:30) 
Visible Trade Balance (09:30) 
Non-EU Trade Balance (09:30) 

FINALS 
Eleco 

AGMS 
Angel Mining  

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE 
ACM Shipping, Colefax Group, Hampson Industries, Henderson Smaller Companies Inv Trust, Kesa Electricals, Phoenix IT Group