Dear fellow traders! Today i almost had a heart attack.Why? As some of you may know I have been long this stock DRMD - yeah, trades like 100k shares a day. Bought it yestarday @ 22.58 put my stop @ 21.70ish. Today It gapped up and I put in another stop @ 22.10. After like 10 or 15 minutes (while I was stil thinkin that I will actually make some money) I tried to put in a sell stop at 24$ or near that price. It turned GREEN and said Invalid order , CANCELLED. HRM... I got a little worried. Then I waited a little more and have seen the stock go through my stop. Nothin.... OK, it may have been in pref mode with MM or something but I doubt it. The stock then retraced a little and I tried to sell it @ the market. NOTHING???????? Same thing, green and cancelled. After doing it a couple of times I turned green and disconnected my PC, called IB (yeah, from CROATIA) and sold the D*** thing for 30$ commission AND a 50$ loss. ARG! Why wouldnt my order go through? I mean it didnt have to be executed, I just wanted to see it at the IB computer. Ah well, guess this was a good lesson. By the way Im kinda glad that I stuck to my plan but can't help it regret that I didnt sell at the open... Yes, I know it would have been breaking my own rules but still... Good trading, Alex
Hi Alex, I noticed the high for your stock was only $22.85. You can't put sell stops above the stocks price or it will be invalid. You can put a buy stop above however. If you want to put a stop above a stock to sell it needs to be a limit order at the higher price. When a stop is activated correctly it should turn dark blue and remain on your screen. I don't know why your market order failed, very unusual, but maybe you had it automatically enter a stop order again by default and you didn't notice? Anyway, look for a dark blue color to know your stops are active, and on a sell stop, the Ask must trade twice at or below your stop price to trigger the stop. Better luck on your next trade
Another cause could be that you didn't input the right number of shares (I've done this a few times). Say you're long 100 shares but put in a order to sell 300, you will get an invalid order. This easily happens when e.g. the default order size is 300 and you've taken partial profits once or twice.
Puhh - NEO - to be very honest , and please don't take it personal, but - I'd say, you should really papertrade for another while and try get a grip on your emotions. Or trade much smaller positions. If you panic because of 10 or 20 bucks up or down .... DRMD openend at 22.60 - 2 cents above your entryprice . Your "gap" was 13 cents wide ! It traded as high as 22.85 ( 30 cent above your entry ) and as low as 21.93 until now - still well above your initial stop of 21.70. and well within it's usual daily range on low volume. No desastrous news for the stock. The market didn't break down, no new terrorist attacks - in short : No reason to get into panic mode ! You accepted already to loose 70 bucks in order to find out whether the stock will break through 23 - well it didn't. But it didn't break down either - so what was the reason for you to bail out at any cost ? A sell-stop at 24 ? Far above the actual price ? Here's what the IB manual says : "A Sell Stop order is always placed below the current market price of the security or commodity. It is typically used to limit a loss or protect a profit on a long stock position. A Buy Stop order is always placed above the current market price. It is typically used to limit a loss or protect a profit on a short sale." If you want to sell at a specific higher price, you enter a sell order and your limit-price. That's it. ( Sell-limit order ) Think a moment what you've done : Have you cancelled / modified your stop-order from yesterday correctly before entering any new order ? If it was a GTC order. Modification means also new transmit . Have you cancelled your 22.10 sell-limit order before entering the order to sell at market and before entering this 24 $ order "sell-stop" order ? Have entered correct election-prices for your stop orders ? Have you transmitted the new order correctly ? Why did you disconnect your PC ? I guess you where so angry about everything that could have thrown him out of the window. Calm down. Please read the IB manual carefully and think about what kind of order you're going to submit.
BTW, there is an interactive brokers chat room on othernet. Using mirc connect to othernet, then use the /list command to get a full list of channels. I'm not sure of the name, but it's probably simply #interactivebrokers. There are ofcourse plenty of other channels. #daytraders is I think the most popular one (though it's no longer listed, so /list won't show it.) voodoo
Dear Privateer, I really appreciate the effort you put in theese replies. I just wanted to say that I double checked my orders and NO, there weren't any problems with size, type, price (it was market order in the end ) etc... Only thing that I can think of is If it was ARCA (cant really remember) so It could have gotten stuck in pref mode with one of the MMs. But that's not the one bugging me. I eventually cancelled and tried to issue MKT 100 DAY BEST etc. and it said cancelled!! A couple of times. Anyway, I admit it's most likely that I have been doing something wrong not IB. And another thing... It IS all new to me and I admit that Im excited (bad thing) so it may look from my posts as if I "Kick 'n ' burn" when this happens but actually I don't I will step aside for a day or two to reasses the situation where I'm at. Thank you all for your time and wish you good luck! Alex
neo, It's just an observation to pass along. I've noticed on a WEEKLY chart that DRMD has made a parabolic move between April and July--advances week after week for three months with only three brief pauses. My experience tells me that stocks that have made such kinds of move usually are poised to drop big time. Yes, the stock has been consolidating since then, but it also looks like it's forming a triple top. It's probably best not to go long here. Also, in my opinion, patterns and volume should come before indicators, but I've noticed that you rely quite a bit on stochastics and RSI. These momentum indicators are good to use only if the patterns and volume confirm them. On a weekly DRMD chart, the volume has been declining as the stock has made its advances in the past 4 weeks. Chances are it's poised for correction. Just my $.02 worth. stockoptionist
Yes good 2 cents. OK, maybe a dollar I agree with you on DRMD. Will never listen to other peoples oppinion again. I also belive that basically price and volume are the two things one could and should only rely on (since all the indicators are derived from them) and I dont rely heavily on them. For ex. It was only a couple of days ago when my friend Tack introduced stoch. usage to me. TLC Alex P.S. I dumped the stock...too thin, couldnt get my stop executed , plus I panicked and in the end called IB and sold it. D***, 30$ comiss. and I only lost like 50$ on the stock. Ain't it funny
neo.. the setup looks ok to me.. when you get in ahead of the break you have to be prepared to be stopped out more often and you also need to give the stock a little more room to jiggle about.. when the third retest of a resistance level is preceded by a larger pullback (price/time) than the second retest, often the stock will create a head and shoulder pattern rather than break on the third test.. so, i wouldnt get into this until the stock actually breaks or forms the right shoulder.. you see, alot of people are looking at this same chart and see a tripple top, not a breakout play.. they will be shorting/selling here and so you dont want to be long this stock unless it proves it has the cahoonas to break.. good luck =) -qwik
Limit and Stop orders. If you own a stock and want to sell it (get rid of it) Limit Order means- "sell the stock if it goes above this price". Stop Order means- "sell the stock if it goes below this price". Maybe the market price was below your Stop price. The Stop order would trigger when the market price moved below (and through) it. For the market price to go below the Stop price it has to start above the Stop price. If the market price was below your Stop price (when you entered it)the order system would recognize it as invalid.