Another daytrating WTF

[izard]

In a previous part, I asked a rookie question and got perfect answers from pros that explained everything.

Now I have a more complex situation, but options are the same: I misunderstand something, or there was a glitch with my broker's software.

I opened a $1000 long position at $9.90, set TP at $10.15. I also have an open buy stop limit order of $300 at $10.20 (please don't ask me why I don't just close $700 at $10.15, I would have done exactly that if my software would have supported this type of limit order).

The price fluctuates between $9.70 and $9.95, and then suddenly I see my limit order to buy at $10.20 is executed. So I have two long positions now, $1000 opened at $9.90 and $300 at $10.20, and current price is $9.80.

When I checked a chart in the terminal at and around the execution time the price was always in $9.89-$9.96 range. It never even crossed $10.00 today! How can it be that price was high enough to trigger buy stop limit at $10.20, but it did not trigger TP at $10.15?

Is it a broker bug or I am a fool (again)???

Comments

[chuka_lis]

интересный вопрос.

[sab123]

The charts are not exact, they don't show every transaction. It also depends on what chart you're looking at. Is it for transactions executed? Or is it for the average price between best buy and best sell offers? If at some point there were no sell offers at the price below 10.20, that would trigger the execution of your order. That's basically why the limit orders are a bad idea.

[izard]

Thank you! Right, the chart is just candlesticks with highest/lowest transaction prices lines.

But if someone sells me at 10.20 (limit order triggered so there is some liquidity at this price), why I can't I sell at 10.15 at the same time?

I did some investigation and I think I found something that can be related to a root cause. My oder was executed at 20:31 my timezone, and the main exchange where the security is being traded was closed at 20:30. However my broker still trades until 21:00 my time but with much higher (10x!) spread (must be moving to another venue..) So in the future I'll just close my limit orders before this event..

[sab123]

The sell and buy offers are separate. There can be a big spread between them. There isn't a single "market price" there are two separate bid and ask prices.

But yeah, executing the order in after-market is a big surprise. It could be that the order was triggered on the main exchange when everyone was wrapping up for the day and then they executed it in after-market.

Stop orders

[dennisgorelik]

> the limit orders are a bad idea

Do you mean that stop orders are bad idea?

Re: Stop orders

[sab123]

You're right, stop orders.