Hi, Paul.

PE> FM> The story with the wrong brokerage, FYI, is as follows. You had a sell
PE> FM> order in at 13, and one at 15 for 30000. The former was in the system
PE> at
PE> FM> the brokerage rate, the second at the minimum $ amount. While the
PE> system
PE> FM> has provision to record the limit price of orders, it's not normally
PE> FM> done at our place - there's no real need for that info to be entered.
PE> FM> The bookings clerk put the first part trade against the first order he
PE> FM> found, which happened to be the 15 one. So that was charged at
PE> FM> qty / 30000 * $75. The next day he booked the first part to the balance
PE> FM> of that order (same calc), and the rest to the correct order - at the
PE> FM> rate you normally pay.

PE> I'm not sure I understand that.

Let's say you were selling 10/- NTS at 15 and 100/- at 10, and your
normal brokerage rate is 2.5% with a minimum of $75. The first order at
2.5% comes to $37.50 brokerage which is less than the minimum so it's in
the the system with a fixed brokerage of $75. The second order comes to
$250 brokerage, more than the minimum, so it's in there at 2.5% (in
case, say, we managed to sell some at 11).

Now say we sell 5/- at 10. The booking clerk doesn't have the limit
price of the *order* on his screen, so he books it to the first one he
sees which happens to be the 10/-. That's half of that order, so you get
charged half the fixed brokerage, or $37.50. And that's 7.5%! I'm sure
you can plug in the real numbers in your case and come up with the
figure you were charged.

PE> But now that you know there's a problem, do
PE> you have a fix for it for the future?

I just have to remember when you have more than one order in the system
and tell the booking clerk. And that's not foolproof, if say the trade
was done late in the day and I didn't happen to see it, and left for the
afternoon before it was booked.

PE> Also, like OS/2 bugs, WHY ME?  Am I
PE> making more than 50% of the trades at your place or what?  BFN.  Paul.

Er, no. :-) But you are unusual (but not unique) in having more than one
selling/buying order in at different prices, and so subject to that
error. I recall that the booking clerk did ask me who that trade was to
go to, and I said "Paul Edwards".

Also, most of our advisors put most of their trades in with an order
reference number into the trading system, say FIM12345. That gets
automatically booked when the back office system matches that with order
number 12345 from advisor FIM. I don't do that, because then I lose the
ability to reliably find all my outstanding orders in the trading
system, which I try and reconcile a couple of times a week. It won't
match FIM with FIM12345. I've been caught before when an old selling
order had been cancelled by the client and I hadn't pulled it from the
screen - then it got hit some weeks later!

Regards, fIM.

 * * Faeces Happens !
@EOT:

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