Hello everyone (this board is great), Once you enter a trade, is it somehow possible to place 2 orders to exit and whichever doesn't happen first gets canceled? I ask because I use Datek and I can only place an order to exit a position in one direction. For example, if I wanted to either make 10% or lose 5%, I would have to either put a preset order to exit at +10% OR -5% and then I would have to monitor the trade in case it went in the other direction of where the preset order is. I wish I could just put in 2 orders and have the other get canceled whichever didn't happen first (I already suggested this to Datek). Do any of you know of a broker that lets you do this? Or do you all have to monitor the trades? Thanks!
IB has that feauture and it is the OCA (one cancels all) order. You put in 2 orders and if one gets hit the other cancels out automatically.
Several allow you to do that. Cyber allows you multiple conditions to exit. However, They do not cancel each other, if I remember it well. I now use IB anyway, where it is rather easy to do that. You enter as many orders as you want for example :1 stop loss, 1 sell at 8%. That's 2 orders. When you enter them you tag them with a group name, usually I name the group with the ticker symbol. This is called an OCA order. If any of the order is executed, the others will be cancelled. It works well, although you must be aware of the fact cancellation might take time, even so little. So the difference between the 'election' price must be enough to allow time to execute and time to cancel. Otherwise you risk both orders to be executed [and then have an opened short position]. This is very useful when you want to monitor other stocks while you are in one or more positions. It helps discipline since the stops are executed and profit taken not too early etc.. Read other threads addressing some issues with stop loss and IB. On fast moving Nasdaq stocks, some claim the stops are not executed. My experience is different and it works well with me. You must understand how their stop election works. Anyway I find it good and it very useful. Specifically for profit/stop loss automatic execution. That's what you want so you can concentrate on other things. From time to time I watch these active orders and with IB, at a glance you can check if the price was not violated, or executed etc. Other brokers have conditional orders, but not all conditional orders are cancelling obsolete opposite orders. vpineomatrix
MyTrack has another feature which is nice and should be with any broker imo. They offer Order Cancel Orders, this is explained above and work the same. They offer also Order Sends Order. This means when one of your order is executed, it sends right away another order. This might be an order to send a stop loss order right away or a limit order to get profits at a specific target. Of course it is possible to do this manually. But I think we have computers to help us do these automatic things. vpiNeo