Unable to Sell

[Dirty Steve]

Im quite new to trading. started trading regularly only a month ago but have already bought and sold shares in over 10 companys and have done pretty well up to yet. Anyway, my problem is that sometimes when I try to sell through my online broker I get he message "This stock cannot be executed automatically at this time. Please try again later."
Sometimes this last only a few minutes, sometimes hours sometimes its alway there. The only way I found to sell one lot was to put a sell order in out of hours and that seemed to work once the market re-opened. The problem is, every time its happened its cost me money!!! Is this just my broker or is it common. It is only with the smaller AIM listed companies its happening.

 

[Trader333]

Which broker are you using ?


Paul

 

[Dirty Steve]

I use Xest. I have an Egg savings account and they use Xest for people wanting to trade directly out of their egg savings. Benefit is that I dont have to transfer money before each trade to a broker, and I earn good interest on my uninvested savings still. Down side is you can only trade on the LSE.

As for the problem at first I thought it was due to me investing in the smaller AIM Listed companies and that there was simply no one dealing in that share. Problem is tho, that by looking on the LSE web page Ive seen that trades have been executed in a particulary company regularly throughout a day when Ive been unable. On top of that I couldnt understand whilst after 3 days of trying (And losing 5%) it sold first time when I put a request in out of hours. Sold the next day at 8.02!!

I dont mean to slate Xest tho, as its not that common and they are otherwise good, but its just annoying when it happens, like it did again this morning.

Thanks

 

[goostrey]

It is quite a common problem with the smaller companies. You will always find buyers and sellers in the mid and large caps, but little co's sometimes have very little trade. This can make buying and selling difficult at times. You tend to find that when you can sell easily the price will go up shortly afterwards, because those in the know want the stock.

I used to work in the small co markets and it was always a case of selling into strength, as otherwise you could end up holding the stock when the price was falling and couldn't sell, except at a terrible price.

edit

just seen your second post, try another broker :!:

 

[adrianallen99]

What quantity are you trying to sell at a time? AIM stocks don't always have the volume to place bigs orders and you are sometimes limited to selling only a certain amount at a certain time.

I dealt with AFD a while back and when the stock was shooting up, you could only buy 50k at a time.

Of course there are some brokers that just have problems (one name springs to mind, but Im not going to mention it here) and you rarely ever can place orders online.

 

[Dirty Steve]

Its only been small amounts. Between £1500 and £2500. I've been investing this kind of money in quite a few reccomended AIM companies rather than a lot in one company. Its quite amazing how well you can do.
Made 33% on BetInternet, 31% on SportingBet and 25% on StatPro all in my first month. Just wish I could have had 50K oneach of those!!!!
Just dont undertsand what the broker does differently to mean a share that was un sellable for 3 days sold 1st time when requested out of hours. Maybe that was just chance and it would have sold that next day at 8am if Id have tried the old way.

 

[London prisoner]

unable to sell ?!

it's gotta be the funniest thing I have read in a long time . Man, you need to 1) change broker 2) stop investing in illiquid POS.

 

[ChartMan]

Not a good idea to sell/buy first thing in the morning either- spreads are HUGE to suck in suckers. IE if a stock is normally 9/10p to sell/buy,the market makers will open at , say , 7p/ 12p to make it look like the stock is going up.... or frighen sellers into thinking it's going down. That's the time the mm's earn their FERRARI POINTS. :cheesy:

 

[Marc100]

Couple of possible reasons:

1) NMS. This acronym stands for normal market size and basically means your broker is under no obligation to deal in amounts above this figure. Each company will have a different NMS dependent on their size and liquidity.

An AIM listed company such as Regal Petroleum has an NMS of 3000, as opposed to an FTSE 100 company like Vodafone which has an NMS of 200000.
In theory, if I were to place an order to buy 3100 Regal shares the order could be rejected.

2) At the begining of the day a share price can move extremely fast, looking for it's direction. Placing an online order during these periods will be hard as the price you tried to deal in may have come and gone causing your order to be rejected.

Because the companies you mention trade on the AIM they will by default have a lower NMS.
Also as they are AIM companies you could face liquidity problems at any time during the day.


Rgds

Marcus.

 

[Naz]

You could change from the UK and trade the Nasdaq with direct access.Buy or sell before the market opens, after it shuts and if the spread opens up act as a market maker yourself through an ECN and capture the spread.