BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WITH DECIMAL POINTS

[whiteheron]

Online trading is great and suits me just fine , ,but it has dangers if you are not fully attentive

I placed a "stop loss" order recently but inadvertently entered 0.78 instead of 0.078 with the result that the order triggered immediately (i am not sure if such orders get reviewed by online brokers before being placed in the market but mine obviously did not)

I managed to buy back later in the day at just above what the sale went through at but it still cost and had the potential to cost much more , as shortly after buying back in the share price moved up significantly

Having worked with figures all of my 44 years working life i should not have made the mistake i did , but a moments lack of concentration and/or not making that final check before i pushed the "send" button produced a bad outcome

I am going to suggest to my broker that they add an "alert" function to their software to enable capture and review of orders falling way outside the norm (say 75% )before they are released to the market

If others have experienced similar traps i would like to hear from them

[Steve]

Which broker do you use?

[Halebop]

I almost did something similar with a buy order about 6 months ago. Luckily the bulk of cash in my account was from a pending settlement meaning my buy had to get in front of the eyeballs of someone at the broker before it could go through.

With racing heart and shaking hands I quickly cancelled the order! [:I]

I hope it didn't cost you too much.

[Cooper]

I had a similar experience... trying to buy an 8 cent share for 80 cents... someone would have been extremely rich if it wasn't pointed out to me

[whiteheron]

I use ASB Securities and i find them in general to be okay , probably similar to other brokers although i have not had online experience with others

The cost of my misfortune was just over A$200 including the sell and repurchase brokerage

I have now spoken to ASB Securities and they advise that Australian orders go straight through to market and get reviewed by them subsequently to check out funds availibility

As the fault was mine i have put it down to the cost of experience , which sometimes comes at considerable cost in this gsme

[craic]

If you use the Direct Broking site to buy or sell shares - watch out. The form defaults to ASX. Mostly when you try to buy it will tell you that there is no such code on the ASX and you realise your mistake as I have done several times. Except for that momentous occasion when I put my shirt on SKC. Expecting a quick purchase at market, I was surprised by no response within twelve hours so went to order status and found no order. Decided that I had screwed up by not confirming the buy before I went off line, I placed the order again. Shortly after that I found that I had spent my shirt on the ASX and another shirt that I didn't have on the NZX. Managed to scrape together the funds for both with the intention of selling one lot in a day or two but fortune sometimes smiles on fools and that was the point where SKC hit its straps and I am now the proud owner of twice as many as I deserve

[Gryffyn]

You jammy b@stard :-)

[Longtack]

Access Brokerage bailed me out of an online ballsup where I would've be buying at the pre-split price rather than the real price when trading commenced on the day for Aussie shares. So much for my research. My fault entirely and at no cost to anyone.

[Ricardo]

Similar mistake with powers of ten. Ordrered 10000 TEL when at the time I could only afford 1000. Being TEL, the order was through before I could amend it. Had to do a quick sell, and came out OK.
My first day trade.
That was with Direct Broking. They have some sort of rule now that limits the credit they will give you, so may no longer be possible unless they know you have the cash (though their risk low - can't loose more than the amount the shares drop before they sort it out)

[Steve]

On a related note, I placed an order for LIC not realising that I was not eligible to be a shareholder as I was not a dairy farmer.

My order was partially completed before the broker contacted me to say the shares could not be registered and that they would sell for no brokerage. Got out about even.

[Snoopy]

Here is my anecdote from back in the pre-internet days.

I lined up a share I wanted to buy on the NASDAQ. This was back in the days where if you wanted to buy something from an overseas market your only effective choice was to do it via a local broker. Back then I wouldn't have dared ring up on the phone to place the order. I had to get dressed up and go downtown to visit my broker personally.

I'd gone to a lot of trouble: Getting a rough quote from the Financial Times - quoted at '36'. I'd been down to the bank to organize the oveseas currency conversion. Then I gave my order in for 10,000 shares.

At the time I calculated this would equate to around $NZ5,000 worth of stock. However, because I had done all that work, and didn't want to miss out for the sake of a few cents, I put a limit on the price I was prepared to pay per share of 38c. The trouble was that quote I picked up via the FT was in dollars not cents, so I actually unknowingly ordered $NZ500,000 worth of stock!

I couple of days later I received a faxed letter from the USA, penned by someone who I can only assume had a master's in diplomacy. It went something like this.


----------

Dear Sir,

We have received your order for 10,000 XXX shares. We are happy to execute limit orders for our customers.

However, in this case the share is currently trading at around $36. Consequently we feel your offer price of 38c may be a little unrealistic.

Yours sincerely,

Blah Blah

---------

I remember spending some weeks (or was it months?),laughing at the polite way my foolishness had been dismissed at the time. However, if I hadn't put in a limit order, and I had bought my shares , while the market was moving againt me I guess I could have been bankrupted.

SNOOPY

[zyreon]

It pays to be in command of yourself