Long/Short Orders

Anyone know of any brokerages that allows simultaneous long/short limit orders placed on the same equity ticker? Trading the spread.

 

Not sure I completely understand your question, but when you trade arbitrage, it's usually done on a pair of instruments, such as INTC and AMD. When you place both buy and sell on the SAME ticker at the SAME price, the two orders will get filled immediately, one after the other, and you basically end up only paying 2 commissions.

So what is your definition of "spread"?

 

going long at 10.05 and placing a short limit order at 10.10, some brokerages do not permit trading this way and won't permit opening orders on both sides. Most do not allow simultaneous long and short order being filled.

 

Another way of putting it is which brokerage allows boxed positions in equity trading?

 

Every brokerage I know of allows that. Market at 10.00, sell limit at 10.10 and buy limit at 9.90. Why not? Obviously, they never get filled at the same time...

 

Dude, isn't that OCO (or bracket) order? You get in at 10.05 and place a bracket order at 10.10 (for target) and 10.00 (for stop). All brokers that I know allow OCOs.

Bracket order (or even Conditional order) also allows you to place two simultaneous entry orders at the same time.

 

In Schwab if you create a boxed position they make you call in to have a broker close it out. It's not allowed at TDAmeritrade, I called and asked. If you have a position going long at 10.05, TDAmeritrade will not allow you to place a short limit order at 10.10. You first have to liquidate your long position in order to have that short limit order placed. It's called a boxed position, you have both long and short filled for the same ticker symbol.

 

You mean, because of buying power?

 

That is correct but you now changed the setup. Initially you said you are not in any position and want to place a sell and buy limit at the same time. You can do that. What you state now is being in a long position and wanting to open a short position. You can't do that because you are already long. You can only enter a regular sell limit order, which when executed, either reduces your long position, closes out your long position or results in a net short depending on the size of the sell limit order.

It is not permissible from a regulatory standpoint to have two separate long and short positions open at the same time in the same underlying stock. You can only maintain one and only one net long or short position but not both at the same time.

 

Here. Try this. Follow as written.

1) From the bottom of the screen click on the "Advanced orders" pulldown menu and select "Make this a conditional order".



Or from top of the page, you can simply select the "Trade" tab and choose "Conditionals"



From there, you can choose from 1 of 6 different conditional orders as shown.



You can do exactly what you want (plus a lot more) with these conditional orders. For instance, "One Triggers OTA" will allow you to place 3 orders IN ADVANCE: 1) Your long entry, 2) your short entry to reverse long entry once entered, 3) then an exit for your short.