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$17 spread on Ford stock as stock exchange closes...

Maetryx

Maetryx

Diamond Member
screen shot

Notice that it was 10 seconds after 5:00PM, EST. Scary though. What if you had JUST put in a market order to buy or sell, and ended up selling your Ford shares for $8, or buying some for $25? (significant because they traded all day in the mid $16 range).
 
Why would someone put in a market order after regular trading hours? Some brokerages don't even allow it (ie datek) because most stocks aren't very liquid then. Market maker firms deliberately widen their spreads like that to avoid trading.
 
I don't know how you got that information, I got This off my trading account. You may have had an error, that type of news would have been all over the financial channels and I heard nothing about it.

Crazy stuff, makes me wonder though...
 


<< Why would someone put in a market order after regular trading hours? Some brokerages don't even allow it (ie datek) because most stocks aren't very liquid then. Market maker firms deliberately widen their spreads like that to avoid trading. >>



why?

easy. because they can. if you can get a security at the price you want to pay, what difference does it make wether you do it before or after 4 pm?

By your methodology, its like this:

BB has a PS2 for $300 today. They also have it for $300 tomorrow.

So why should you buy it tomorrow if you can buy it today?
 


<< why?

easy. because they can. if you can get a security at the price you want to pay, what difference does it make wether you do it before or after 4 pm? >>


I didn't say why trade afterhours, I said why a market order, vs. a limit order. Because of the spread issues market orders (incl. stops etc.) after hours are prohibited by online brokerages to protect their customers from this, and is why they often only allow limit orders in afterhours trading.
 
In a thinly traded stock (say Canadian mining companies for example) I always use limit orders. But before I saw that weird spread I thought I could safely save $5 off the commission on something as heavily traded as Ford by doing a market order.

I don't know what to make of that after hours spread. I'll have to login to my account after hours more often. That's not too hard to do because I'm in the Alaska Time Zone. The stock market closes at lunchtime around here.
 
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