Share Selling Advice

Lizzy007

Hi there
Hope someone can help? My husband nominated to sell shares he held with his employer when the shares were at a high price but the shares were actually sold a month later by which time the price had dropped £0.65 which lost us £2,500. Do we have any come back?

I would have thought the share price when we opted to sell would have been the price? Otherwise we wouldn’t have sold!

Any answers gratefully received

L

Malthusian

Lizzy007 wrote: »

I would have thought the share price when we opted to sell would have been the price?

Who's his employer? If it's not a large listed company and the shares are somewhat illiquid, then it may not have been possible to find a buyer for his shares instantly.

What's the process for selling? Did he need to get permission to sell his shares or is it just a matter of someone pressing a button?

Lizzy007

Large listed company and it’s an online button pressing operation where he had to nominate if he wanted to sell or reinvest he opted to sell - 3 days later share price dropped

AnotherJoe

Tough luck. And to expect them to run a stockbroking type operation where you put orders in to buy or sell at a particular price is unrealistic, they will just do a sell as and when they get round to it. Had the share price risen the same amount he wouldnt have to give back the £2500 either.
Also, there's a discrepancy in your post. Did it sell a month, or 3 days, later? I can see if the sale was a month later he perhaps could complain to the company about the inordinate length of time and see if they would provide any compo though i doubt it. But 3 days later isnt that long in terms of this type of scheme.

eskbanker

What do the rules of the company share scheme say about processing transactions? If they commit to selling within a certain timeframe and breached that then it would be worth making further enquiries, but if the rules were followed (or are silent on timescales) then there's nothing to complain about....

Lizzy007

They sold it a month and 10 days later - the drop in price happened 3days after he nominated to sell

bowlhead99

Lizzy007 wrote: »

They sold it a month and 10 days later - the drop in price happened 3days after he nominated to sell

So whether they had processed his sale on the stock market in four days or forty days, he would not have been able to avoid the drop in price. Their taking over a month to do the work didn't cost him £2500 as it already happened within a couple of days.

The reality is, his agreement with them does not guarantee he will get out at a specific price or specific time of day (share prices can change within a few seconds anyhow). They probably pool orders together and submit them periodically to avoid incurring lots of processing and brokerage costs. There may even be further restrictions if the company is about to announce its results to the market and they need to prohibit employee sales in certain 'closed periods' to avoid risk of staff trading on insider info.

If he had wanted to get out before the drop in price, he should have given them lots of notice that he definitely needed to sell the holdings by a specific date.

What, he didn't know they were going to drop? Neither they.