Incorrect BIDU earnings date on ThinkorSwim marketwatch/calendar cost me thousands of dollars in loss

Broker Discussion
1

I was going to trade BIDU on the 25th of April 2018 and wanted to look at the earnings date.

I looked at the calendar under marketwatch on ThinkorSwim (TOS) and it showed the earnings will be reported on the 3rd of May 2018 and a conference call on 26th April 2018. Since the earnings were not going to be reported until next week, I went ahead and did the trade on 25th April.

I monitored the trade on 25th and 26th and it didn’t show any volatility. I discussed the trade with a colleague of mine who also had the same trading strategy as myself. He looked at the calendar and said the earnings were on 3rd May.

On 27th April, the price went up and BIDU opened at 253.95, a big spike compared to closing at 238.69 on 26th. I looked at the calendar to double check if I had made a mistake in looking at the earnings date. To my surprise, it now said the earnings date was the 26th April.

I am 100% sure that on the 26th April the TOS calendar showed the earnings will be reported on the 3rd of May. Also, my colleague telling me that the earnings date was the 3rd May reassures me that I did not make a mistake in looking at the calendar. It was a mistake by TOS that cost me a thousands of dollars.

Unfortunately I did not take a screenshot of the calendar when it showed earnings for BIDU will be reported on 3rd of May and I cannot prove TOS that their system was displaying incorrect information. I will be able to get my money back if I can prove that the calendar showed BIDU earnings in the month of May.

I am trying to connect with all the people who might have run into the same situation and suffered because the platform didn’t display correct information and someone who might have taken a screen shot of the BIDU calendar on the 26th of April.

I am trying to get my money back from TOS since the platform displayed wrong information and I lost a major chunk of my investment protfolio.

Hopefully I can find someone out there who can help me in this terrible situation.

2

Never nice to hear, but in short you won’t get any sort of refund. It will be in the small print that errors in data are not at the financial liability of the provider should you act upon it. It’s always a good idea to cross check anything that you want to use which effect a trade, if only for your own duedillagence.

3

Hi Baconsandwich,

Thank you for your response.

I talked to thinkorswim and they said they are not responsible for third party vendor information. However, the vendor provided them with correct information but it was the platform that displayed it wrong.

When I explained the situation to supervisor at TOS, he refunded the commissions to me. He also asked if I had a screenshot of the calendar which unfortunately I didn’t have.

If only I have a screenshot which I’m hoping to acquire from somewhere, that will make my case stronger.

4

If you’ve looked at it in the past do you have a cache on your pc? It can load up the webpage you last looked at, before changes are made in real time?

5

I do have cache on my PC but I didn’t open the calendar in my browser, i used the thinkorswim platform to open it. I’m going through the cache for the app but no luck yet finding that page.
I’m going to keep trying. Thanks for the help.