I'm new to IB. I use stops alot. It seemed that stops were not being activated. Today I had a stop to sell short a stock and I watched as many trades went off below my stop.WTF! So I cancelled it and hit the bid for an immediate fill. The stock then reversed and went against me. Then I read that sell stops with nasdaq stocks are activated only with two or more asks at or below the stop. So I looked at time and sales and low and behold there were no asks below my stop so the stop correctly was not triggered. What I'm wondering now is this..... Is it better to let IB do it's thing with the stops or would it be better to manually punch in a limit trade as soon I see trades go at my stop. In the first case I might get saved from buying tops and selling bottoms (like today). In the second case I would get fills closer to my stop. I buy breakouts and sometimes the price moves away rapidly and I don't like waiting. So, confirmation of move, or price improvement. Which is better in the long run? What do you guys think?
Are you buying that much size that placing a market order would adversely effect you, especially since it seems that you're watching your positions?
Well I buy up to two thousand shares at a time. I've used market orders but it seems they sometimes take longer than limits. I don't trust them. I think MMs play games with them. But whether stop mkt or stop limit, at IB the price trades away from them before the stop is activated I'm just wondering if I should change the mode of entry to allow faster entry and price improvement. I only trade nasdaq.
You can try to estimate the spread and then move the stop that much closer so you exit where you want.
you can use the configure menus to trigger stops differently if you desire. The reason for IB's implementation is to avoid triggers on bad ticks. Totally up to you. I've seen those for and against it.
It seems that one of the inherent problems with short sales is that they have to occur when there is buying interest to cause someone to take the offer on NASDAQ. On NYSE, it's even worse because the buying interest has to overwhelm the selling interest enough to cause the spec to move it up (unless, of course, he wants to get short too, but that's another story ). Therefore, by definition, short entries will always be moving against you at least temporarily.