TRADER RESPONSIBILITIES
Clients must be familiar with the following responsibilities and must agree to follow all Regulatory and Exchange rules.
ACCOUNT REVIEW
It is always the client's responsibility to review their account daily, through the clearing firms at their websites\to compare the information shown there versus the information displayed on the trading software. If there is any discrepancy of any kind, including but not limited to; current equity, buying power, or positions the client must contact AutoShares prior to acting on any information that does not match. Also if you ever believe for any reason that anything is incorrect in your account, please make sure you always contact us before acting. If a client acts before contacting us to verify the validity of their account information or fails to review their account on a daily basis, any issues that arise as a result of not reviewing their information or contacting our firm in a timely manner will be solely the client's responsibility.
TRADING
Clients are solely responsible for any order placed in their account or by their user. Clients must be sure to keep their user names and passwords secure and not allow any other party to have access to that information. Any trades placed in the client's user or account are considered valid. The client account will be responsible for any execution or cancellation on those orders, regardless of the timing of that order. Limit orders placed and left outstanding in client accounts may be executed at any time, including in pre-market or after-hours trading. Clients are responsible for cancelling any order they do not want to be executed.
It is also the client's responsibility to review all their open orders daily, especially if you are placing GTC (good till cancelled) orders. If you believe you had an order that for some reason is not showing on your software or have any other issue or problem with any order, you will need to contact us immediately. You will be responsible for this daily review of your open orders. Any issues caused by the failure to do this review and to contact us in a timely manner to resolve any discrepancies will be solely the clients responsibility. Also, please note that you alone are responsible for any orders you place in your account and the resulting executions from those orders.
STOCK SPLITS, SYMBOL CHANGES & OPTIONS
It is the client's responsibility to notify AutoShares if they hold any stock that has either a forward or reverse stock split and/or if any stock they own has a symbol change of any kind.
The client will also need to contact us if you are holding an option that has expired, been exercised, assigned or changes symbols.
The trading software will NOT automatically adjust for these changes. The client will need to contact us and we will manually adjust their trading software to reflect these changes.
SHORT SALES
The term 'short sale' means any sale of a security, which the seller does not own, or any sale, which is consummated by the delivery of a security, borrowed by, or for the account of the seller. For stocks hard to borrow, short sales must be preceded by a request to AutoShares to make sure stocks can be borrowed. We will then contact the Stock Loan Department to ensure the availability of the stock. If approval is granted by the Stock Loan Department, AutoShares will inform you that the stock can be sold short. If approval is not received, the security in question cannot be shorted. If you short a stock that has not been located, the transaction may be cancelled and you will be responsible for any losses incurred. Short sales made on stocks not located will result in a buy-in. All trades that violate these rules will be put into a designated error account. All losses will be charged back to your account. You will not receive any profit from these trades as they are illegally gained. Repeated violations of these rules can result in your account being closed. Assuming the security in question can be shorted, the short sale must take place as 'sell short'. If the trader uses a sell to place a short sale or over-sells a position, it is possible that the trade will be executed illegally. This is a violation of FINRA and SEC rules. The trader is responsible to cover any illegal position immediately with a corresponding buy. You will be responsible for any losses from invalid short sales and any invalid gains from these trades are illegal and will be removed. These issues must be reported via e-mail to AutoShares by the end of the trading day.
MARGIN
There are 2 types of margin available - Overnight (2:1) and Day Trading (4:1). Overnight buying power is limited to two times the available equity at the end of the preceding day. Overnight positions held above two times equity will result in a federal margin call. You may have up to 3 business days to cover an overnight call by either sending in new funds for the amount of the call or liquidating positions to meet the call. If you liquidate positions to meet this call, your account may be restricted or closed. If you do not cover the amount of the call when due, AutoShares will liquidate your position.
Day Trading buying power is applied to stocks that you day trade (buy and sell in the same day). For margin accounts with equity above $25,000, the margin is set at 4:1 and there is no limit on the number of day trades that can be made. Note that overnight positions still must not exceed 2:1 margin. For accounts under $25,000, there is a limit of 3 day trades allowed per any 5 consecutive business day period. Overnight positions are not affected by this limitation. If you violate this rule, your account may be restricted or closed. It is the client's responsibility to abide by these rules. The electronic order entry software systems provided to you by AutoShares cannot do this on your behalf.
Buying power figures are set at the beginning of the day and generally will not be increased for the remainder of the day (covering overnight positions may not increase these numbers). When you have overnight positions your available buying power will generally be computed as follows: 30% of short positions and 25% of long positions, subtract both figures from your equity and double what is left over. These percentages may be subject to change or differ by stock.
There are also increased margin requirements when shorting low priced stocks. The minimum requirement is $2.50 per share on shorts, so if you short a stock trading under $2.50 a share you still will be held to the increased requirement of $2.50 per share. Stocks trading between $2.50 and $5 will be held to 100% requirement on shorts. Stocks above $5 per share will be held to a minimum requirement of $5 per share and then the regular short requirements thereafter.
You will receive a margin call if you go over your day trading buying power at any point during the day. This day trading call must be met with cash only within seven business days. If you do not meet your day trading buying power call, we will CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT.
AutoShares. will generally attempt to contact you about any margin calls you may receive. This notice may be done by e-mail, phone or by other means pertaining to the details of your margin call. Clients must strictly adhere to all margin rules. Please be aware that AutoShares is in no way obligated to inform you of your margin calls. It is your responsibility to monitor your own account at all times. AutoShares may also cover part or all of your position to meet your margin call at anytime with or without notice. The clearing firm may choose to stop extending any credit at all or close the account for repeat violators. Also no checks or wire transfers can be sent out of the account unless there is available free cash of at least that amount in the account.
EQUITY REQUIREMENT
The amount of equity required to open and maintain a pattern day-trading account is $25,000. If your equity drops below this amount you must deposit additional funds to get your equity back up to $25,000. If you do not maintain the minimum equity, your account may be allowed to become a regular margin account with buying power determined by the clearing firm and limited to 3 day-trades in a five day period. Positions held overnight do not count as day-trades.
CASH ACCOUNTS
It takes 2 business days for traded funds to settle in cash accounts. When you sell a stock, the clearing firm will issue you buying power the following business day; however, those funds cannot be reused for at least 2 business days. If unsettled funds are used to buy a new position and you sell that new position before settlement of the original sell order, that is considered a good faith violation of free riding and withholding. Your account will be closed if you get these violations repeatedly. You must hold new positions past settlement of the original sell trade to avoid this good faith violation. This violation can also be avoided by opening a margin account, as margin account funds can be reused before settlement without the 2-day restriction.
ILLIQUID STOCKS
Clients cannot trade in excess of 10% of the previous 20 business day average trading volume of any stock on any day regardless of the stock's price. In addition, for stocks trading below $1 per share, clients cannot trade more than 25% of the current day's trading volume. If a client trades in excess of these restrictions, then their accounts may be subject to closure and/or interest charges during the 2-day settlement period of those trades. The interest charges will be assessed on an illiquidity requirement imposed on the clearing firm, which could be many times the value of the trade. The interest rates charged to clients who violate these restrictions will be between 15% - 25% per year, assessed at a daily rate during the trade settlement period.
OVERNIGHT BUY POWER RELEASE
When you cover a position you had held overnight, we can allow the trading software to give you a release of buy power. This release will show up in both your intraday and overnight buy power numbers on the software. The reason for this is because the overnight buy power amount shown in the software is only informational. It does not actually limit you to only trading that amount because the software does not know how long you will hold a position when you open it. The release that goes into your intraday buy power CANNOT be used for intraday trading (day trading). If you do any intraday trades (day trades), they can only be done using the initial intraday buy power you had before you covered the overnight position and got an additional release. You cannot use the newly released funds for new day trades. It can ONLY be used for taking new overnight positions. If you do use the released funds for new intraday trades (day trades) then you will get a day trading (DT) margin call. That type of DT call can ONLY be met by depositing new funds. If you get a DT call and do not deposit funds to meet that call, your account would be closed.
ROUTING FEES
The routing fees on the website and as set in the software are subject to change at anytime. You are responsible to know the correct fee for any route you are trading through. If necessary, we reserve the right to charge or adjust for venue, routing, or exchange fees.
DISCLAIMER
System response, trade executions and account access may be affected by market conditions, system performance, quote delays and other factors. The risk of loss in electronic trading can be substantial. You should therefore consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial resources and circumstances. We can not and will not be held responsible for losses resulting from issues with the use of third party software quoting systems or third party order execution routing issues. We only provide our clients with the ability to connect to quoting software and order execution routes, we do not own or control them.