TDameritrade posts phatom trades near end of trading session

Friday afternoon was to be a relaxing end to a great week of trading for me. It has been a long couple of months and and even longer 2 years since we started seeing the effects of the current credit meltdown. I had one stock to sell and then finish the day early to avoid the end of day crazies that have tended to be the norm on Fridays. I had noticed the stock I was trading had swung back up into the green and sat down to sell. I looked at my balance and had seen that my it was not showing a gain of 500 but rather a loss of 1700 plus. I thought I was seeing things and frantically refreshed my screen. It was a nightmare because my balance kept shrinking for apparently no reason. (continued on next post)

TDAmeritrade has a Friday Meltdown that burns customers

TDAmeritrade is not known for its trading platform prowess. They seem to not be able to get there real time streaming down to a science. Usually about once a week the system has some minor cliche that would typically not be noticed if you were not trading actively. These are happening often enough that they have started the don't ask, don't tell policy for customer service. They aren't telling and they aren't asking if you were effected by their technical issues. Often trades will not cancel or they will freeze while they are pending. If you missed a trade and want to cancel often times you are unable to do so and instead have to wait for the stock to come back down have it be executed and then sell it again. This has happened many times the past month but they customer service department refused to acknowledge there was a problem. I would consider this a basic form stealing. Friday's was the far more egregious. More to follow in the next post.

follow up to the opinion poll

First the divide is because you can ride the change train for free, and most of the "folks" are still expecting BO to come to their front stoop and hand them a check directly from the tarp bank account. Wait a minute. I forgot that the tarp money has already been vaporized by wall streets "best and brightest".

2. the market isn't saying much to Obama. The market is finally saying OK now we realize the change train is more of the same train and that the trillions spent on stimulus will not turn the tanker ship of the economy around until it reaches the delta. The message of "superpower, super hero administration" was sold to the American people and they are still buying it. If the administration can keep selling this message long enough the economy will turn on its own and Obama might get re-elected. Most people are too caught up in surviving their daily lives to really give a crap what the stock market is saying. The truth is that the media covers the market more than it covers the "folks". The people going on TV are always selling something or they wouldn't likely be there spouting off some ridiculous opinion on how to save the world economy.

4. Straight from Merriam Webster --hemorrhaging-a rapid and uncontrollable loss or outflow. Example - A financial hemorrhage.

When we are hemorrhaging 650000 jobs a month, most people are more concerned about their next paycheck than they are about their 401 k. I also would imagine that most people have been pummeled so much that their 401 k might be cut in half and they have just decided to not even open their statements now. The probably figure that it is too late to do anything about it now and I am sure the mutual fund brokers are selling the same old book but now with the extra pitch that you don't want to miss the upside bounce that is sure to happen any day now. I think that might have been true in July as well.