From my "a funny thing happened" file...
Thursday at 2pm, I placed a limit order to go long ES at 1532.25 but was slow on the draw and didn't get filled. Decided not to chase it, and left the buy order active hoping that the ES would retest. But by 3pm, it was still going up and I had to go out for the rest of the trading day. I normally would have cancelled my order, but on some bizarre impulse I decided to let it stand with a tight 1-point stop, a wishful-thinking PT sell order at 1538. I activated an automated TradeStation strategy to sell at market at 4:13 pm, 2 minutes before the close, if neither my PS or PT were filled by then. I then left for the balance of the day, not knowing what the outcome would be.
Upon returning this evening, I checked the computer and was surprised to find the following:
1. At 4:01 pm, ES retraced to 1532.00, one tick below my buy order. I got filled.
2. ES then advanced a few points but never got close to my PT, despite Apex's best-efforts incantations on this forum -- "gonna go up, I can feel it, any moment now." (Apex, you really need to work on your body english.)
3. At the 4:13 pm bar, ES traded between 1533.75 and 1534.25, so that's where the automated end-of-session strategy should have closed out my position for a +1.5 to +2 point gain. But for some reason, the automation didn't trigger. (Maybe it didn't "see" my long position because I'd placed the entry order manually, not through automation. I need to investigate this and figure out exactly why it didn't work as expected.)
4. So I wound up holding my long position at the close and into the Globex (not my intention), where ES is now trading around 1534.25 (+2 from my entry). Not what I expected, but not altogether a bad place to be, either. I guess I'll just keep an eye on it and probably hold it into Friday's RTH . Hopefully Apex will continue his incantations throughout the evening session.
Ya just can't trust @#@$%! software...
