Does a broker have a legal duty to provide recent indicative ask and bids?

Thatā€™s probably a question for your lawyer is it not?

Do their terms actually say anything about the displayed price? I donā€™t think they reference those as indicative prices? And they donā€™t display any information on the time of the prices.

Iā€™ve had a good read through them and they donā€™t specifically state anything.

I was hoping with collective knowledge on this forum that one person may know the answer without resorting to lawyers.

I donā€™t know if from having a broker license they agree to providing timely quotes, or an FCA rule etc

There must be something to say it can be indicative as in what you see might not be what you get by the time it executes the price could have shifted etc

But I canā€™t see anything to see how recent that indicative quote needs to be, like a few seconds out might be reasonable, a minute out might be pushing it on a liquid stock.

When the quote is an hour, day or weeks out then to me that would be misleading and financially costly.

@phildawson

  1. We update AIM quotes only from 08:00 to 16:30 GMT. Stocks like Kodal usually quote often between 07:30 - 08:00 & 16:30 - 16:35. We currently ignore quotes from those time periods as we facilitate trading only between 08:00 - 16:30.
  2. Most quotes donā€™t match on purpose as the data is purposefully derived. We donā€™t provide 100% accurate raw prices. Additional examples are Greatland Gold - last raw prices being 33.50 / 34.50 while ours are 33.47 / 34.54.

Quotes are indicative. Theyā€™re usually not far off from the NBBO but that doesnā€™t mean theyā€™ll be 1:1 all of the time. Thatā€™s not something weā€™re planning to do.

What we will be doing though is improving execution so that orders get filled off-book more often instead of waiting for an auction but that still doesnā€™t mean that theyā€™ll be instant all of the time.

@David fully aware they are indicative but how is it useful being completely wrong and out-of-date, you can see the misleading zero spreads I have submitted, and you can see currently itā€™s showing 0.07 in Bloomberg terminal as the BID and 0.075 in Bloomberg data fed into the app.

So when the BID changed today at 8:37am to 0.07 and all other brokers instantly updated to that was T212 showing 0.075 (and still is)?

Also the period I am talking about is weeks without a new quote (when other brokers have continually received the current). Itā€™s not one of those why hasnā€™t it updated at 8:00 like other brokers and we are getting the first quote randomly at 2:12pm

Take this example here you have the 15th October and then the next quote appears on the 27th.

Whilst again on all other brokers (that have raw spreads) like AJ Bell it was showing the new ASK and BID in the app every single time it changed in that period. Whilst in T212 it was stuck showing an incorrect ASK and BID for twelve days.

Why did T212 (or Bloomberg) miss all those times it changed whilst all other brokers were bring through the new quotes perfectly? And all had the same ask and bid shown.

This is nothing about execution. Purely about the data feed.

If you slowly move along the candles you can see the gaps. So you get periods where you have constant quotes, then randomly doesnā€™t (whilst other brokers still get them perfectly fine in those periods T212 didnā€™t so itā€™s not that specific stock).

Is there anyone senior who can respond to the reply in this thread.

@David @Martin @Tony.V @PeterA @Wit @Ivan @George

The reply from @David doesnā€™t make sense, but that might be me not understanding. @David if you could please reply again to the above response.

  1. We update AIM quotes only from 08:00 to 16:30 GMT. Stocks like Kodal usually quote often between 07:30 - 08:00 & 16:30 - 16:35. We currently ignore quotes from those time periods as we facilitate trading only between 08:00 - 16:30.

So to me this is suggesting that not many/no quotes are during the day which isnā€™t true the ask/bid change many times on these AIM stocks during the day. Other brokers (that have raw spreads) all get updated as soon as it changes.

So to be clear my issue is with ten brokers (that have raw spreads). When the ASK / BID changes from 8 / 7 to 8.5 / 7.5 during the 08:00 - 16:30 we have the following.

Broker 1: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 2: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 3: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 4: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 5: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 6: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 7: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 8: 8.5 / 7.5
Broker 9: 8.5 / 7.5
T212: 8 / 7

The ask/bid then changes again.

Broker 1: 9 / 8
Broker 2: 9 / 8
Broker 3: 9 / 8
Broker 4: 9 / 8
Broker 5: 9 / 8
Broker 6: 9 / 8
Broker 7: 9 / 8
Broker 8: 9 / 8
Broker 9: 9 / 8
T212: 8 / 7

So what Iā€™m getting at is that T212: 8 / 7 sometimes gets stuck on that ASK/BID for weeks at a time whilst all other brokers are updating instantly to the same best prices.

If all those brokers get updated the second it changes why canā€™t T212. I still havenā€™t had a reply to this.


The second issue is regarding when T212 does update it sometimes only gets half either ASK or BID updating.

So in T212 you might have an ASK of 10 and a BID of 8.5 then what happens is appears to turn into a zero spread.

10 ASK / 8.5 BID
10 ASK / 9 BID
10 ASK / 9.5 BID
10 ASK / 10 BID :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

And in reality in all other brokers apps you see the correct display which might of been say

10 ASK / 8.5 BID
10.5 ASK / 9 BID
11 ASK / 9.5 BID
11.5 ASK / 10 BID

So the T212 has 10, and all the other brokers are correctly showing the 11.5. Ive submitted about around ten occurrences as proof of this, the most recent being Thursday.


So just to show again the BID changed to 0.07 at 8:37am on the 21st December (that you can see in Bloomberg terminal). And at that time all other brokers updated.

Apart from T212 which is showing 0.075 and is still showing 0.075 right now.

I expect T212 will still be showing 0.075 for another week or so, in the meantime other brokers will be updating to the new ask/bid during that time.

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@phildawson Iā€™m looking into the Kodal Minerals case specifically.

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@David Thanks, much appreciated. :+1:

The same issue applies to all of the AIM stocks btw Iā€™m only using KOD as an example as I follow the T&S and trades very closely so I can easily see when its getting stuck on T212 when other brokers have the correct same ask/bid.

(I can give examples of the same occurring to KEFI too, especially the fake zero spread issue where only the BID updates)

In fact @David here I document KEFI zero spread back in October with you in the thread.

@Martin @Tony.V @PeterA @Wit @Ivan @George @Rumen

All of these have been well documented and theres about 25+ tickets relating to this. After you take a look @David you can hopefully feel my pain when I spend hours reporting it and I get back an email saying its ā€œtrading on AIMā€, ā€œlow liquidityā€, ā€œprices are indicativeā€ and a lot of the time completely irrelevant content such as trying to teach me about what the spread is.

I have experienced so many factually wrong support emails and answers in chat that its a bit concerning.

Take the most recent from 398664

Furthermore, please take into account that the sell price is not visible on the Invest account.

:man_facepalming:

From 426914

When it comes to the spread, however, that will not be applicable in your GIA/ISA. A spread in trading is the difference between the buy (offer) and sell (bid) prices quoted for an asset. The spread is a key part of CFD trading , as it is how both derivatives are priced.

:man_facepalming:

And imagine youā€™ve just spent an hour reporting and discussing on chat and then get this response #356330 :

Thank you for reaching out!

AIM (Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the LSE (London Stock Exchange), which was launched on the 19th of June 1995. It is a replacement to the previous USM (Unlisted Securities Market) that was in operation since 1980.

The AIM allows smaller companies with low liquidity and demand/supply to be traded at a specific time of the day with a more flexible regulatory system than is applicable to the main market. This means that orders with instruments that are part of the AIM will be executed differently than the ones part of the main LSE market. Due to the low liquidity, itā€™s possible that orders might not execute at the auctions for days or even weeks, which may also lead to no price quotes.

The FTSE Group maintains three indices for measuring the AIM, which are the FTSE AIM UK 50 Index, FTSE AIM 100 Index, and FTSE AIM All-Share Index.

Please do not hesitate to reach us should any further questions arise.

:man_facepalming: ThAnKs fOr tHat.


Iā€™m really not trying to be a dick with being so persistent, I just want T212 to report the issue to Bloomberg so I donā€™t have the same issue in 2021 missing spikes and drops because the alerts havenā€™t gone off because its still showing the ask/bid from the previous month.

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tenor

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@Martin @Tony.V @PeterA @Wit @George @Rumen

@David a good example might be now, the ask / bid is 0.085 / 0.08 all other brokers are showing this. You should see this in Bloombergs terminal atm.

The last trade as of this post was buying 588,012 @ 0.083 at 08:08:02

If we look at T212 we still have 0.08 / 0.075

Even the Kodal website has the correct best ask/bid

And still not in T212. This is what Iā€™ve been reporting for the last three months.

What would be more interesting than the price shown would be what the price paid would end up being?
Have you tried executing an order and then checking the price it goes through at against other platforms?

It will go through at whatever the current ask is so although itā€™s showing 0.08 I would expect near to or 0.085 hitting the ask.

The Bloomberg and Interactive Brokers that send it to the exchange arenā€™t connected in anyway.

Itā€™s a good illustration of just how financially impacting it is if you think the BID is above your average in app but in reality its way below, or in this case paying more than you expect with market buys.

Next auction at 11am in 25mins, letā€™s see if the either get filled or I get an OTC instead.

An OTC order at 9.00 wonderful

And why did it wait until 10:48am :man_shrugging:

A great illustration of just how harmful being out of date showing the 0.08 from the 18th of December.

And to clarify I know itā€™s actually been at 0.09 for most of this morning, thereā€™s nothing significant about 10:48. Just that someone else internally wanted to sell at 0.09, so someone just got a partial fill of 1250 shares for Ā£1.13

Iā€™m happy to take the 13p hit to prove a point.

So are you referring to the illusion of being able to sell at a profit or buy at a lower price? Once actioned without checking the actual price via another platform or directly leads to losses either way?

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Yes so what T212 had was the ask/bid from the 18th December.

As a customer I should be able to trust that the 0.08 was indicative of the BUY price.

(Looking on all other brokers I could see that the current ask was actually 0.09 that should have been showing if we were getting new quotes correctly and consistently)

So in this case I would expect 1250 to cost me a quid, but the extra 0.01 adds another 12.5p (rounded to 13p)

If I was buying say Ā£10k of stock (at 0.09 where it was actually at) it would actually be an extra Ā£1,250 than I would be expecting on a market buy.

Detrimental to a quick execution trader then.
Have you seen the post I mentioned you in?

Well this isnā€™t about execution, it is simply about being shown a recent ask/bid in the app that is indicative. Having an old ask/bid from last Friday isnā€™t.

The actual execution I have no issue over whatsoever. Although the OTC at 10:48am is awkward. I would like to see the personā€™s face if that was the partial fill of Ā£1.13 :sweat_smile:

If you carry out fast orders ie predetermined buys sells etc then you could be in a lot of trouble if the price isnā€™t set by you, if you see something and then just buy based on share numbers and then the buy goes through at a higher price due to misinformation a few quick trades later on similar stocks and your massively out of pocket.
The same on the sell side ofcourse you could have sold several stocks on what appears to be a good trade and then find they have all lost money.

So for those that trade quickly for a short amount of time a day (quick orders) the losses could be huge

They donā€™t have to honour or guarantee what is shown is what you get though. Thatā€™s why itā€™s just indicative. They do need it to be recent though.

Depending on liquidity the ask/bid can be moving very fast. The actual execution times are excellent.

What I think they do guarantee is that an OTC or off book will never be higher than the current best ask/bid on the order book. (So if they had done that OTC at 0.095 and it was 0.09 then yes I would be pissed. I think that might also be illegal)

They donā€™t do fixed quotes like AJ Bell where they say for the next 15 seconds if you press the button youā€™ll get this exact figure.

Also, unless i am misunderstanding, it makes it much harder to set good limit orders if the ask/bid displayed by 212 are so off. Iā€™m sure many people, including me, only ever trade with limit buys/sells so this kind of issue would be a bit of a problem.

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