I would like to know if this is what I can do using stop-limit orders. I have never used them preferring stop or limit or simply market orders instead, so my knowledge of this kind of order is limited at best. So here is what I would like to do: I would like to place an order that gets executed when the price is above/below a certain value but not more than one tick for ES. Say, I would like to short the market @878.0, but it is is now trading at 875.0. I may not be at my desk when the price is again above 878.0 to place a stop sell order, so I would like to have an order that gets executed when the price reaches 878.0 within one tick. I am not interested in limit orders in this case, just in an order that gets executed when the price is one tick away at most from a certain value. I believe that this is what the stop-limit orders do, but I am not completely sure about it. I am using IB as my broker. Ideally I would like to place orders like that the night before as one of my systems gives me entries the night before. However, when the market opens it may trade below my entry level when my system advises to short it, but may later return to the level I am interested in. I simply would like to have an order that could take care of that no matter what as long as the market gets to my entry level within one tick. I mentioned that system of mine in the thread 'Simplicity Rules!!'. Today is yet another good day for this system. It's up over 15 pts with just one order. It trades only a few times a month, trying to catch bigger moves in the market. I want to make it available to others, but I am too busy with other things now, so please be patient.
You need our Trader.NET. Stop Gain order (opposite to Stop Loss) when you can buy or sell after the market has reached your price target either with a limit order or market order. Ex., Sell ES @(878.5-offset) when the ask is @878.5. or you can use market order.
Just checked your "Simplicity Rules" thread. Not much there of any worth I must say. Where's this simple system of yours? Can we see it?
It looks like you want to short stock at a value higher than its current market value. This is not the time to place a sell limit order. This is the time to place a plain "limit order" to "sell" your stock "ES" at your predetermined price level. Using your example, if you want to short a ficticional stock called "ES" at $877.99, then with your objectives in mind, the night before your taking a short position, place a "GTC" order to "sell" "ES" at the "limit" of $877.99 (i.e. one tick below $878.00). The emphasis is on a "sell limit order". Also, try to make the order "GTC" and/or "day+ext" if these qualifiers are accepted by your broker's software. ES will be shorted (i.e. ES will become a "marketable limit order") as soon as bid on ES rises to $877.99, and your stock will be shorted at $877.99 or higher.
Yeah, what else do you have to say? The system is simple and makes money and that's enough for me, why should I care about your opinion, tell me? Will this make me money? I doubt it. That was just an example of a system, I have others too. You can see its trades in the thread '100 shots'. The keyword is simplicity. That was my point and still is: you can accomplish as much if not more using simple systems rather than more complex ones. BTW, this is not a place where you can get good systems for free, here you can get the stuff that has already been in the public domain. It can work for some, it will not work for most and that's why it is in the public domain.
Thanks for your answer. I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing, but that's not so important at this point as I can handle this, anyway. Just wanted to simplify my life a bit.
I have this feeling that my answer was less than perfect. It could be that A) "ES" is an indice, not a stock, and it could be B) you want the short a stock when an indice (like "ES") climbs to a certain level.
I believe you are looking for conditional orders. Check out the current beta where you can place a conditional order. If you want to post it after hours, you need to send in the order GTC. The conditional orders are set up in a fairly straight forward manner. You can place an order to do X when condition Y is met. Example: You place a bid for a stock option (or other type of order such as market order) when the underlying stock or index trades at a certain value. So try it out with the current beta. right click on an order before xmitting to get to the conditional setup box.
But probably you're going to need some good (and pricey) software; inexpensive stuff like QT and/or Askresearch stuff are just not sophisticated enough. For some reason as soon as the S/W can make simple decisions like 1 + 1 = 2, the price of it doubles, triples and quadruples.