I'm hoping to get some feedback from traders who use (or have used) stop orders to enter trades as opposed to limit orders. Here's why:
I recently transferred part of my trading account to IB and while learning the platform and learning to manage multiple DOMs, I committed several order errors and a couple of these errors resulted in accidental reversed positions that became immediately profitable.
As an example, I was trailing a buy stop on a short position that was very close to major support. I wanted to ride a further breakdown, but also wanted to exit quickly with max profit if buyers piled in, which frequently happens at major support levels. I had doubled the quantity field much earlier thinking to add the position, but I never did add to it and so when I put in the buy stop it was for twice my position size. When the stop was triggered the short was covered at a nice profit and I ended up long an equal size to my short. The long immediately became profitable and I was able to capture a nice move on the bounce.
This got me to thinking: Entering a trade via a calculated stop should in most cases place you in the direction of the momentum. For example, if price has been trading beneath a falling moving average, and rallies to the MA line and I place a sell stop beneath that MA line, I will catch the next continuation of the downtrend in the direction of the price action. If price keeps going up, I've saved myself from entering an unprofitable trade. The stop is basically placed at a price level that would confirm what you currently "believe" should happen.
I actually used this intentionally for the first time Thursday when STEC started a downtrend after failing to make a significantly new high on the day. The double top catches my attention, the failure to resume the uptrend off the 20-period intraday MA provides confluence, then as price approaches the previous support level I decided to place a sell stop just below that previous support level, assuming a breakdown of that level would trigger further selling and I'd catch a ride in the direction of the breakdown. It worked perfectly and my only mistake was covering at the next support level instead of waiting to see if a further breakdown was in order. (As you can see from the chart, I missed the majority of the move.)
So as a newer trader, I'd like to get some feedback from seasoned traders on the long term success of this method for both trend-following trades as well as for counter-trend trades off S/R levels.
I recently transferred part of my trading account to IB and while learning the platform and learning to manage multiple DOMs, I committed several order errors and a couple of these errors resulted in accidental reversed positions that became immediately profitable.
As an example, I was trailing a buy stop on a short position that was very close to major support. I wanted to ride a further breakdown, but also wanted to exit quickly with max profit if buyers piled in, which frequently happens at major support levels. I had doubled the quantity field much earlier thinking to add the position, but I never did add to it and so when I put in the buy stop it was for twice my position size. When the stop was triggered the short was covered at a nice profit and I ended up long an equal size to my short. The long immediately became profitable and I was able to capture a nice move on the bounce.
This got me to thinking: Entering a trade via a calculated stop should in most cases place you in the direction of the momentum. For example, if price has been trading beneath a falling moving average, and rallies to the MA line and I place a sell stop beneath that MA line, I will catch the next continuation of the downtrend in the direction of the price action. If price keeps going up, I've saved myself from entering an unprofitable trade. The stop is basically placed at a price level that would confirm what you currently "believe" should happen.
I actually used this intentionally for the first time Thursday when STEC started a downtrend after failing to make a significantly new high on the day. The double top catches my attention, the failure to resume the uptrend off the 20-period intraday MA provides confluence, then as price approaches the previous support level I decided to place a sell stop just below that previous support level, assuming a breakdown of that level would trigger further selling and I'd catch a ride in the direction of the breakdown. It worked perfectly and my only mistake was covering at the next support level instead of waiting to see if a further breakdown was in order. (As you can see from the chart, I missed the majority of the move.)
So as a newer trader, I'd like to get some feedback from seasoned traders on the long term success of this method for both trend-following trades as well as for counter-trend trades off S/R levels.
