Hey, I never said every brokerage was on the up and up.
Years ago, my Dad bragged that all his trades were done for free because he had over (I think the threshold was $500k) with his broker, anyway, I told him the broker did only in house trades which meant he'd get screwed. His logic was to only put in limit orders. Well that doesn't work either as they just hold the stock until it gets high enough above his limit they can do a cross trade.
Well sure enough, he sold his stock and when I looked at the time and sales, there was his 1000 share order that went through $1.80 below every trade around it. I printed it and sent it to him. Only cost him $1800 for that free trade. There are no free lunches in the market. People believe the discount brokers are all charitable? They ain't.
