So, hypothetically... let's say I bought a stock that rhymes with 'chef' 'dee' that opened up at around $40 / share... and I unfortunately bought it at about $40 / share. Per the stock's history... it has never been at $40... why is this and is there anything I can do to convince my broker to reduce the purchase price of the stock down to whatever its max was at opening?

It's not clear if your objective here is (a) to get a refund from your broker because you paid what you now think is too much for the stock, or (b) if you're trying to get them to report a lower cost basis for tax purposes when you sell it. If you paid $40/share then that's your cost basis - you should have a trade confirmation that reports exactly what you were charged. Regarding (a) - If you're trying to get a refund - well, good luck with that... And as for (b), it's to your advantage for your broker to report as high a cost basis as possible, as it reduces the amount of capital gains you pay tax on (or converesely increases the amount of loss you can write off), so you really don't want them to report a lower purchase price.

I don't understand your coyness about what the stock is. I'm guessing that "rhymes with chef dee" is probably FB, or Facebook, but why be so secretive? By the way, FB traded as high as 45 on the day of the IPO, so $40 ain't so bad - see: FB Historical Prices | Facebook, Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance

ebaines, even though I can't make sense of this question, I have a question that might be related. If big investors (such as this broker's firm) were the only ones able to buy huge blocks of shares of an IPO at the opening price, would that 'unavailable' opening price show in the history he is seeing?

Again, assuming we're talking about Facebook - the actual IPO to the big investors was at $38/share . The data reported on the historical web sites (like the Yahoo.com site I mentioned previously) show an opening price on the day of the IPO of $42.05/share, a high of $45/share, and closing the day at $38. So it appears that this is reporting the publicly traded activity only, not the initial offering. It would seem the OP bought his shares on the market on that first day after the stock hit its peak, as it was falling in price.

My question here is what history you are referring to. A stock price can fluctuate wildly at times. It could trade for one price one minute and another price the next. Traders on the floor may be given buy orders and make an offer at $40 and some other trader trying to sell may accept that offer. The stock price history will probably not reflect EVERY price it ever sold at.

As ebaines said, you should have a trade confirmation. THAT is your proof of what the stock cost you.

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

The stock price history will probably not reflect EVERY price it ever sold at. .

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Actually it does. Every sale of stock is recorded, and the prices reported as opening, low, high, and close each day are accurate. I can't to speak for over-the-counter markets, but sales reported on the NYSE and NASDAQ are true. If they weren't there would be high-prices lawyers eagerly waiting with multi-million (maybe billion) dollar suits just itching to nail the exchanges for fraud.

However, the final price actually paid by individuals will include trading fees charged by their broker, and those fees are obviously not recorded by the exchanges. So it's posible that a stock may have a reported high price of, say, $40 on a given day, and the amount an individual actually pays his broker could be higher than the reported high.

It depends on what history the OP is talking about. Clearly there is a record of every trade and the price paid. But I'm not sure (and may be wrong) but I don't think such a history is readily available. I guess I assumed the OP was talking about a summary as posted in most newspapers.

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

It depends on what history the OP is talking about. Clearly there is a record of every trade and the price paid. But I'm not sure (and may be wrong) but I don't think such a history is readily available. I guess I assumed the OP was talking about a summary as posted in most newspapers.

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The various exchanges make their data available to newspapers or sites like Yahoo! As I cited in port #2 above. Take a look at the data for Facebook that you can see if you click on the link I posted. Yes, it's accurate.

See, that's my point. I checked out the link and it does not show a listing of prices for every trade. I even downloaded the listing and it was just a copy of the High/Low/Avg listing on the site. If the price the OP paid was not an Open/Close or High/Low then it doesn't know that the stock didn't trade for a specific amount during the day. Its possible to get that info, but its not readily available. So I would still like to know what history he was looking at.

Again, the OP has not responded to confirm that he is indeed talking about FB. If he is, then we know that it sold at times for both more than and less than $40, and while we can't say for sure that it ever traded for precisely $40 given the volume of trades on that first day I would bet that it did. Typically stock prices move in small increments from trade to trade, so it seems highly likely.

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Originally Posted by ebaines

Again, the OP has not responded to confirm that he is indeed talking about FB. If he is, then we know that it sold at times for both more than and less than $40, and while we can't say for sure that it ever traded for precisely $40 given the volume of trades on that first day I would bet that it did. Typically stock prices move in small increments from trade to trade, so it seems highly likely.

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I totally agree. But the OP said specifically; "Per the stock's history... it has never been at $40". So my question was what history is he looking at. He may be looking at a summary. I doubt that he is looking at a listing of all trades on that day.