AMEX trading hours and rules on today ONT shares trading (my broker 'blames' AMEX)?

Question

Inexperienced trader seeking for experienced traders' input: (Thanks in advance for your time)

It was 10/18 - before 1:00am - when I placed an online order to buy ONT with limit $1.20 each. I got it for $1.16 - the highest ONT trading rate for the day - even at 10:30 am east - when I called my broker to ask why I got the shares at the highest rate:

1) Broker said AMEX trading hours for ONT have not really started at 9:30am.
2) The charts on broker site show the AMEX opening hours: 9:30 am/ Opening price for about 4 minutes: $1.07/share and it did not jump right away to $1.16.
3) I did not order to buy the shares before the AMEX opening hours. But my broker said it is how AMEX deals with the orders.
4) Broker also said that if I had placed an order to sell, it would
get processed immediately. Since I placed the order to buy, it didn't get thru so fast.

Is here any trading sense from his say or he forgot to add key words?

Answer 1

First, if you are a long term investor, you were willing to pay 1.20 according to your limit and you got filled at 1.16 so it's a good fill according to your instructions. Long term, 4 cents isn't going to make much difference.

Second, if you consider yourself a "trader" a lot of weird things happen in the pushing and shoving of the open. The specialists on the floor make a huge amount of money at this time. In this case, it wouldn't surprise me if the specialist/market maker first did a bunch of buying of opening orders (ONT opened at 1.07) and then sold to the opening buy orders at 1.16 (ONT jumped to 1.16 right after the opening) thus making 0.09 per share just for being the specialist/market maker. He has no obligation to match the orders of public buyers with public sellers. It's good to be the market maker. Traders like me always wait to see how the stock opens to get confirmation before placing an order. A lot of things can happen in the news between 1AM and the market open. Traders never put in orders and let them sit that long.