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Used a spreadsheet for 6 months to track my broker's fills, then tried just checking my statements and the spreadsheet won easy
Last week I pulled up the Excel file I've been keeping since January on my Scottrade account and put it next to the monthly statements my broker sends. The statements looked fine, but the sheet showed my average fill was 12 cents worse on the 20 trades where I clicked buy right at the open. That gap alone was $410 I never would have spotted from the PDFs, since those just list the trade price with no reference to where the stock was at the moment I hit the button. Now I want to know if anyone else keeps their own log, and what columns do you track that actually caught something your broker's paperwork hid?
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morgan.joseph28d ago
I kept a log for two years on my Fidelity account and always thought it was just busywork, since the statements told me everything I needed. Then I added a column for the time of day when I placed the order, and it showed my fills after 3pm were about 9 cents better than my morning orders on the same stocks. That was the opposite of what I assumed, and it changed how I set up my whole week. Columns worth keeping are the quote you saw when you clicked, the actual fill, the time down to the minute, and whether it was a limit or market order. The statements will never show the quote you were staring at, so that gap is invisible unless you write it down yourself.
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