Lightspeed Stops - do they work? Plz help me!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been trading for years, and never had a problem with limit order stop or market order stops with Anvil. Now, I’m stuck using Lightspeed (I hate it!). But, I’m going to try to make the best of it.

My trading style requires me to have anywhere from 30-60 positions during day. It is impossible to watch everything, so I use a lot of stops. With Anvil I could go to lunch w/o worrying.
The following are some of the experiences I have had with Lightspeed stops. If anyone has suggestions on how to avoid, or get around these issues please let me know, because so far, Lightspeed has caused me to lose a lot of money.

1. After getting out of a position, I push the hotkey that is set to cancel all remaining orders for that symbol. However, the cancel all orders button does not cancel stops. For example, I long 500 shares of xxx at 10.50, I put sell limit orders out at 10.75 / 200 shares, 11.00 / 300 shares, and put a sell market stop order at 10.45 / for full position (originally 500 shares).
a. Situation A: xxx goes up and I get filled 200 shares at 10:75, then xxx goes down and hits my stop. LS would now put me short 300 shares at 10.45. In Anvil, the stop would not only sell the remaining 300 shares, but it would cancel any remaining open orders for that symbol. Can lightspeed do anything Anvil did?
b. Situation B: xxx goes up and I get filled 200 shares at 10:75 and 300 shares at 11.00, then xxx goes down and hits my stop. LS would now put me short 500 shares at 10.45. In Anvil, the stop would cancel when the sell limit orders got filled. Once again, can Lightspeed do anything Anvil did?
c. Situation C: xxx goes up to 10.60, reverses and hits my stop at 10.45, before going up to 10.75 and 11.00. LS would now put me short 500 shares (200 at 10.45 and 300 at 11.00). In Anvil, the limit orders would cancel when the stop was hit. Once again, can Lightspeed do anything Anvil did?

2. Another frequent scenario is my stops are prematurely getting hit during regular market ours. Using both TradeStation and Esginal charts and Time and Sales, show that my stop orders should not be getting hit.
a. Situation A: I want to market long xxx at 11.01. xxx goes up to 10.96 or maybe even 11.00, and for some reason my stop gets activated and I’m now long at 10.96 or 11.00. Seriously, what is the problem here? Plz someone help me!
b. Situation B: I’m already long xxx at 10.25 it goes up to 10.75, so I place a market sell stop order at 10.47. xxx reverses and goes back down to 10.50. Once again, for some reason, my stop is activated and I get filled at 10.51.

So does anyone have any suggestions? Am I using the wrong type of stops for the wrong situation? What do you use? Is there another platform out there that has stops like Anvil used to have?

 

I don't use lightspeed but I have explanation for this.

First, it tracks a number of venues where the stocks are traded. So, on Tradestation or eSignal you may not see the same prices teh platform sees. I appreciate that peopel who are aware of how Lightspeed work may be "stop-hunting" by trying to shift the price a few ticks on more obscure trading venues.

Second, the platfom may be using bid-offer and not the traded price to trigger stops. So, of in situation A market-makers pull their limit orders and the bid-offer spread widens to 10.96/11.01, Lightspeed will take it as stop order at 11.01 being triggered.... even if no trades occured above 10.96.

 

Why do you have to use Lightspeed?

 

Regarding lightspeed stops in general, since they sit in your lightspeed system and not on the exchange, any bad/delayed print that comes through lightspeeds MM box will trigger your stop.

This has happened numerous times to me in stocks like MCP where an erroneous print (100 shares generally) comes through the times and sale window anywhere up to .40c from current price and executes my stop.

As for the other issues, if all profit targets are hit (position size is now effectively 0) lightspeed generally cancels my stop loss orders automatically. However sometimes it doesn't and I run into the same issues you do.

Another issue I have is stops (arcamarketsell/buy) won't even execute when price goes through them.

As for solutions, I'm still looking for some my self...