Flynrider
Phoeix,#2Consumer Comment
Fri, December 05, 2008
The only way to get a guaranteed price on a stock is to make a limit order. If you place a market order, the trade will execute at whatever the market is offering when the trade hits the floor. For trades made on the weekend, the quote means nothing. The quote will be the last price on the stock on Friday at 4:00 PM Eastern. This has absolutely nothing to do with what the market will be offering on Monday morning at 9:30 AM when your trade executes. Things can change over the weekend, or even overnight, so a closing price on one day is not necessarily what the price will be the following morning at market open. The downside to a limit order is that if the price did rise a few pennies over the weekend, then your trade might never be executed on Monday, unless the actual market price goes to or below your limit price. I'm still surprised to find out that Sharebuilder bases their estimated price on 20 min. old quotes. Most decent brokerage firms base their order estimates on realtime quotes. In the olden days, realtime quotes were expensive (while 20 min. old quotes have always been free), but nowadays many brokers offer free realtime quotes on their websites to anyone who wants them. I can't imagine why Sharebuiler wouldn't extend such a service to their own customers.