Dear John: I had placed an order to sell 50 shares of Apple stock on the day the company was recently reporting quarterly earnings. My order was “good-til-canceled,” or GTC, as they say in the business, and was supposed to be executed if the price hit $435.
The stock closed at $420.41 right before the earnings were released. Apple started trading in the after-hours session, but at approximately 4:22 p.m., and with a high of approximately $422, trading was halted pending the earnings release.
The stock reopened for trading at 4:50 with an opening price of $468.75. I received an execution with a price of $435.
I feel I am entitled to the price of $468.75, since that was the opening price after the halt. TD Ameritrade’s desk said the order was paired off during the trading halt and that the price of $435 was correct.
How could this be, since the stock never traded at $435? J.M.
Dear J.M. Sorry for your loss.
As you know, I called the Securities and Exchange Commission on this matter, since you felt you didn’t get a satisfactory answer from TD Ameritrade. (I’ve fleshed out your question a bit to add information that regular people need in order to understand this.)
But essentially, TD Ameritrade says your shares were traded when no shares should have been trading because investors were waiting for the earnings news from Apple. The company, as it turned out, had stellar earnings, and its shares soared.
Someone other than you made that extra profit on your shares.
The SEC is looking into this. In fact, if the commission does its job, it will look to see if other trades were handled this way.
Until I hear something different from you or the SEC, I will consider this an open matter and will come back to it occasionally.
But the SEC did send me an “Investor Bulletin” it put out that warns people about after-hours trading. “Some rules that apply to the handling of orders during regular trading hours do not apply to orders in after-hours trading,” is the gist of what the warning says.
In other words, it’s possible that a brokerage firm is allowed to do what you say TD Ameritrade did. We’ll know better when the SEC rules on this.
Dear John: I have been reading and watching about the dire financial condition of Greece, etc., and of the many meetings taking place to salvage these countries.
The question arises as to whether these countries just stopped paying and their creditors are not demanding any payments. Or has the US Federal Reserve figured out a back-door way (printing money) to keep these countries going? A.M.
Dear A.M. It is anyone’s guess as to what is going on.
What is being reported — repeatedly — is that Greece and its private creditors are near an agreement whereby that country would owe about 30 percent of its debt. In other words, creditors will eat 70 percent.
Wall Street, of course, loves happy rumors. So they continue.
A few weeks back, the Federal Reserve admitted to providing “liquidity” to European banks. That, of course, means money. But, the Fed will tell you, it was merely to keep the banking system greeced — uh, greased.
Anyway, I’m tired of all the false reports. It seems that you are, too.
Send your questions to Dear John, The N.Y. Post, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, N.Y., N.Y., 10036, or john.crudele@nypost.com.