Company Stock Intraday Trading

[Guest btooz]

For all the 401k providers out there...do any DC providers currently offer plans the ability to have plan-level Company Stock trades performed throughout the day instead of only at day's end?

From what I understand, most providers accumulate participant stock buys and sells until about 2pm (likely to help reduce the number of trades performed on behalf of the plan each day), and then go to market with the net trade for the plan; each participant receives the share price as executed between 2pm and the market's close, and use those proceeds to purchase another investment in the 401k.

What I'm interested to know is if any providers would go to the market to have 'interim' plan-level trades performed at other times (in addition to the 2pm 'run'); this would theoretically provide participants with an execution price closer to the actual market at the time the trade was executed.

[mbozek]

One reason not to do market trades more than once a day is that it gives the employees the opportunity to game the system by trading the stock down by placing sell orders early in the day and then buying the stock back at the days low knowing that the stock will be settled at the 2 pm settlement price. Several employers have been burned by employees using day trading techniques or by manipulating the day to day sale price to their advantage. You really need to talk to a broker/ market maker for advice. Also why do you want to engage in matching up the stock sales more than once a day?