I was hoping to buy some VTI today but I couldn’t buy it through E*Trade’s website because there was no quote available. I had noticed in the past few weeks that there was an asterisk next to the market prices of my Vanguard ETF holdings that said: “A quote was not available on this security. It has been priced using the previous day’s closing value.” I called E*Trade and they weren’t much help. The lady kept saying “that is not the correct symbol” to which I kept replying “I don’t understand what you are saying.” Eventually she said that it was on the “Pacific Exchange.” Well the Pacific Exchange doesn’t actually exist anymore:
by 2005, the Pacific Exchange was bought by the owner of the ArcaEx platform, Archipelago Holdings, which in turn was bought by the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. The New York Stock Exchange conducts no business operations under the name Pacific Exchange, essentially ending its separate identity. Pacific Exchange equities and options trading now takes place exclusively through the NYSE Arca (formerly known as ArcaEx) platform
Googling for NYSE Arca and Vanguard finally gave me some hits. Apparently on September 19th, 2008, Vanguard ETFs are now trading on the NYSE Arca Exchange after moving from the American Exchange:
NYSE Euronext (NYX) announced that its fully-owned subsidiary NYSE Arca today began trading 34 Vanguard Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) after the group transferred over from the American Stock Exchange (AMEX).
I wonder if E*Trade will ever support quotes from the NYSE Arca exchange? Apparently I can buy them over the phone. Going to give it a go tomorrow because the markets were closed by the time I sorted everything out.
Update (2008/10/7): They will not charge you extra commission because it is sold on an exchange that E*Trade’s website doesn’t support. They have apparently always done this with stocks that cannot be purchased through the online system. We just bought some VTI shares. I’ll give it a few days and I’ll let everyone know if I see any extra commissions drawn my account due to this trade.
