Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

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Klewles
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Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by Klewles »

[2021 thread bumped in 2022 --admin LadyGeek]

Yesterday I placed on order with Vanguard Broker for a TIPS being auctioned on Thursday April 22. Noticed something unexpected: there appears to be no way to cancel the order online. On the Order Status page, the Status field says "Accepted" and the Action field is blank. I expected the Action field to have a link labelled "Cancel"; that's the case with a different order I have pending (not Treasury).

I don't wish to cancel, but I like to know there is that option should the world change between now and auction time.

If you happen to have an active Treasury order with Vanguard Broker, could you check to see if the option to cancel exists?
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HueyLD
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by HueyLD »

Vanguard says:

“ After the trade: Changing your mind

You can cancel a trade online through the Order status link or by calling us.
We'll do our best to meet your request but can't guarantee that a given trade can be changed or canceled, especially during volatile markets.”

Give Vanguard a call.
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Klewles
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by Klewles »

Vanguard has confirmed that Treasury orders cannot be cancelled online (message below). Bummer, guess I'll be buying Treasuries through Fidelity instead.

Certain orders can be cancelled through the order status link. At this time, the only fixed income orders that can be cancelled in this fashion are orders to buy new issue certificates of deposit (CDs). To cancel a Treasury auction order, one would have to call our fixed income desk prior to the auction's close. We are planning to add the order status cancel functionality to Treasury auction orders sometime in 2022.
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nisiprius
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by nisiprius »

I've bought individual TIPS at auction at Fidelity. I never tried to cancel.

However, I will say this. The process at Fidelity, although perfectly easy to do, was surprisingly complicated to watch. It wasn't as simple as seeing my settlement account drop on the day of the auction and seeing TIPS appear in your holdings that same day. Various numbers here and there in my account would jump up and down by random amounts that were not all the same and were only roughtly $1,000 times the number of TIPS. Some were mysterious "cash" balances that I could get to once I knew where to go and where to look--but did not appear on my account page. IIRC things happened the day of placing the order, a few days before the auction, the day of the auction, a few days after the auction, and some third party was involved, i.e. the actual transactions were not executed by Fidelity, but by some third party Fidelity used. So some of those events apparently represented the making and clearing of transactions between Fidelity and that third party. The bottom line on my brokerage account as displayed online kept jinking up and down by slightly varying amounts of $1,000 x the number of bonds, as if that money were being repeatedly lost and found.

I wouldn't take any bets on the possibility of cancelling any of this once it had truly gotten underway.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
UpperNwGuy
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by UpperNwGuy »

Why do you want to cancel?
Hebell
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by Hebell »

nisiprius wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 6:10 am I've bought individual TIPS at auction at Fidelity. I never tried to cancel.

However, I will say this. The process at Fidelity, although perfectly easy to do, was surprisingly complicated to watch. It wasn't as simple as seeing my settlement account drop on the day of the auction and seeing TIPS appear in your holdings that same day. Various numbers here and there in my account would jump up and down by random amounts that were not all the same and were only roughtly $1,000 times the number of TIPS. Some were mysterious "cash" balances that I could get to once I knew where to go and where to look--but did not appear on my account page. IIRC things happened the day of placing the order, a few days before the auction, the day of the auction, a few days after the auction, and some third party was involved, i.e. the actual transactions were not executed by Fidelity, but by some third party Fidelity used. So some of those events apparently represented the making and clearing of transactions between Fidelity and that third party. The bottom line on my brokerage account as displayed online kept jinking up and down by slightly varying amounts of $1,000 x the number of bonds, as if that money were being repeatedly lost and found.

I wouldn't take any bets on the possibility of cancelling any of this once it had truly gotten underway.
I see this too at Fidelity, but usually only two sets of iterations. I do purchases at auction only. Both initial issues and reissues. I've always attributed the two sets of transactions to one being an estimated settlement, and then one being the final settlement. I figured the difference is due to a slight adjustment in the inflation index or to accrued interest. So I just ignore it until a day or two later, because the last pair of transactions is always an accurate synopsis of the actual transaction.
Kenneth Almquist
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by Kenneth Almquist »

Vanguard now lets you cancel treasury auction orders online. Under "Buy and Sell," select "Trade bonds or CDs." Then select "My Orders and Quotes." Click "Cancel" for the order you want to cancel.

The only thing that's non-obvious about this is finding the order you want to cancel. If you click on "My Accounts" followed by "Order Status," that gets you to a page that will only show treasury auction orders that have already been executed.
davidlliu
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by davidlliu »

Kenneth Almquist wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:14 pm Vanguard now lets you cancel treasury auction orders online. Under "Buy and Sell," select "Trade bonds or CDs." Then select "My Orders and Quotes." Click "Cancel" for the order you want to cancel.

The only thing that's non-obvious about this is finding the order you want to cancel. If you click on "My Accounts" followed by "Order Status," that gets you to a page that will only show treasury auction orders that have already been executed.
I just canceled my TIPS order online. Thanks for the info.
fujiters
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Re: Cannot cancel Vanguard Treasury order

Post by fujiters »

Kenneth Almquist wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:14 pm Vanguard now lets you cancel treasury auction orders online. Under "Buy and Sell," select "Trade bonds or CDs." Then select "My Orders and Quotes." Click "Cancel" for the order you want to cancel.

The only thing that's non-obvious about this is finding the order you want to cancel. If you click on "My Accounts" followed by "Order Status," that gets you to a page that will only show treasury auction orders that have already been executed.
Thanks for this. I was struggling to find a way to cancel my order for the TIPS auction tomorrow and this did the trick.
“The purpose of the margin of safety is to render the forecast unnecessary.” -Benjamin Graham
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