Account possibly being churned

[ozi stocker]

I have a broker who is making trades in Saxo Trader. Is there a service available that can check the trades and see if my account is being churned?

 

[Gringotts Bank]

One guess who the broker is. Starts with 'H'?

 

[skc]

I have a broker who is making trades in Saxo Trader. Is there a service available that can check the trades and see if my account is being churned?

Can you explain what you mean by "being chruned"?

Are you saying that there are trading activities in your account, unbeknown to you, and cannot be reviewed in the account's activity log (or whatever you use to track activity)?

 

[ozi stocker]

I would just like to pay for a second opinion, for someone to go through my trades and make sure my broker is doing the right thing. I know very little about trading so im not sure if the trades he is doing are good or not.

What is churning accounts?
Churning is excessive trading by a broker in a client's account largely to generate commissions.

 

[skc]

I would just like to pay for a second opinion, for someone to go through my trades and make sure my broker is doing the right thing. I know very little about trading so im not sure if the trades he is doing are good or not.

What is churning accounts?
Churning is excessive trading by a broker in a client's account largely to generate commissions.

I see. You have some one who trades your account on your behalf. It is not an arrangement I am familiar with.

Every person has a different trading style and time frame, and go thru periods of under or overperformance. So it may be hard for anyone to say unequivocally whether you are deliberately churned by looking at a set of trades.

May be try ask around / ask yourself a few questions:
- What is your broker's incentive? Is it fixed fee, performance based, or transaction based (i.e. he makes no money other than commissions generated)?
- What expectations do you have before you sign up?
- Were these expectations formed based on what the broker said he had done in the past?
- Assuming you have some informed expectations, are his trading frequency and overall performance after broker commission comparable to your expectations?
- What is your broker's reputation? If you name the firm here chances you will get some feedback on their reputation quickly... particularly if they are dodgy.

 

[ozi stocker]

Im not comfortable giving out too much info. Is there a company that provides the service of checking trades and providing a kind of 'quality of service' report?

 

[Gringotts Bank]

How much are you losing as a percentage of your account size? Over what period?

 

[skc]

Im not comfortable giving out too much info. Is there a company that provides the service of checking trades and providing a kind of 'quality of service' report?

I did say ask yourself as much as ask around...

I have never heard of such service. Your best bet would be to ask someone you trust who has good market knowledge.

If you ask a another broker you might get a biased answer... they might say "No it's perfectly normal" to protect their mate, or say "Yes it's being churned" to damage their competition and win your business.

 

[ozi stocker]

Thanks but I dont know anyone who has good market knowledge.