Apparently this is NOT true, for E-Trade PRO at least, which is a D.A. platform. I apologize for the confusion. Still :eek: your keyboard.
Builder, I know how this happened. You were short and placed a hard stop to cover. When the Ask reached 24.14, your stop was triggered and became a market order. Market orders can have some slippage and that's why it was filled .02 cents less than your stop price. This is why I never place a hard stop on stocks with a spread of more than a penny or two. I use a mental stop and evaluate the price action at that level. If I'm short and there's serious buying volume at my mental stop price or the Level II is printing heavily at the Ask, despite weakness on the Bid, I exit immediately. Also I've learned if shorting TIF @ $24, stops are unnecessary. Just place a cover limit order around $21 and within 2 or 3 days your Realized Gain will appear nice and green. I mean come on, who's buying that crap during a major recession???
+ $200 Short IDCC @ 32.36, overbought, pullback from failure to make a new high. It took forever to creep down to the 32.20 range where it found support, so I covered @ 32.21 for a $75 gain. Iâve been watching MYGN for a few days, and missed out with limit orders. Today I finally decided to trade MYGN using a market entry. Little did I know that to trade MYGN in the midday doldrums, you need to be insane. I am not above that. The price can literally move 1.00 a share in 30 seconds and the spread is .10 - .20 cents. So I shorted MYGN @ 86.52, overbought. It rallied pretty good after that, but not enough for me to consider adding to the position. It became slightly profitable a couple times, but I kept the big picture in my mind, wanting a mere 86.22 for my troubles. I watched the Level II action for a long time and suddenly had an intense desire to gather everyone trading this thing in one room and yell, âWTF are you guys doing!â Then it occurred to me, after seeing bids/asks being added and pulled like crazy and the prices jumping .10-.20 up and down, that NO REAL PEOPLE were trading it; it was market makers entertaining themselves during the midday doldrums! Well, my insanity and my patience paid off as my 86.22 target was eventually filled (329 shares, then later 171 shares â I am not making that up) for a $150 gain, and 90 minutes pure trading entertainment. Short on end of day run up, holding: CECO @ 22.02 HOTT @ 9.25 IDCC @ 32.61
Good to see you stay green, NoDoji. Impressive consistency, no doubt. Keep it up, please - you're my example to follow
Thanks, Bos! P.S. - I am carrying 3 overnight positions and, glancing a my P&L, I see that 3 of my 5 losing days this year were Fridays, so be sure to think a few mean thoughts so as not to jinx me tomorrow.
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for all the replies about my slippage question. Not sure how the order was routed - I just hit "Auto", so maybe I will pay more attention to that if it matters. I was in scalp mode at the point in the day, and didnt realize that hidden stops become market orders around a certain point - I guess this makes sense, I had just figured that a stop was strictly a limit order. In this case it actually saved me 2 cents, however watching the L2 on Etrade Pro, the 24.12 was the highest it went, so that was annoying. I suppose I should study the spread better and how it affects my trades. So thanks for the tips everyone. hope you guys did well today - how crazy was that rally!?
Builder, stops become market orders when triggered, but Etrade has an order type called stop limit which means if the stop price is hit and you aren't filled at that price, you are still in the position. Kind of negates the whole reason for a stop, so I personally wouldn't use it.
+ $296 - Day + $1165 - Week + $2441 - Month CECO ran up in the morning but not enough to entice me to add to the position (though in retrospect, wish I had). It eventually did what I expected and dipped below $22, where I covered oversold @ 21.87 for a $150 gain. Short CECO again @ 22.40 overbought, covered @ 22.24, oversold for a $165 gain. Offered 87.75 MYGN when the Ask was @ 87.86 and the bid dropped precipitously immediately. Touchy little stock, that MYGN. Later placed limit @ 88.00, which was touched, but I did not get the fill before it dropped. After that it found significantly higher support so I decided to leave it for next weekâs watch. It seems to be itching to test its 7-year resistance. (That's what's known as a 7-year itch.) Still holding IDCC and HOTT shorts, neither of which moved enough for me to add to or take profits from. (My better half finished his programming in the afternoon and I alerted him to short HOTT late in the day and he scalped $140 off it).
Good job, NoDoji! I kept checking your overnight shorts; glad you got out of at least one. Waited for my setups, missed a few and had to jet to work. Typical...