On Friday I had an interesting experience with an internet broker. Some shares I owned jumped 25% within a few days so I decided it was a good time to take profit and sell them "at market". I was horrified to see my sell order only get partially executed with the remainder of my shares left with a fix sell price that couldn't be cancelled or amended and meanwhile the share price kept continually dropping.
I contacted the broker and was informed that my sell order would have pushed the price down too low so it the sell price was "fixed" by the broker. After a brief heated discussion as to whether the broker would have been so concerned about the stock price falling had it been their money at stake with a margin call as opposed to my money at stake, I took a diplomatic approach and requested specific ASX or broker guidelines as to how much a stock is allowed to drop with a single "at market" sell order. I was informed there were no such guidelines and that it was up to the brokers discretion.
Can someone please enlighten me as to any rules relating to this scenario or whether I was dudded by a broker's self interest?
