Feedback
European Shorting
My Portfolios
Browse Gurus
Print
Email
A stop-loss (a.k.a. stop-sell) order triggers when the specified stock price touches a minimum price under where it was trading when you entered the order. There are two types of stop orders. Some convert instantly to ‘market’ orders when activated and others those that turn into ‘sell-limit’ orders once they are triggered.
Let’s discuss what would have occurred Wednesday depending on the type of stop you had entered. Assume you put in a 6% trailing stop when PCLN was quoted at $680. That would have triggered on a $40.80 dip to $639.20 or below (assuming no limit price was indicated).
You felt you had unlimited upside with just 6% downside risk. Wrong. Because PCLN opened at $575.10 your sell-stop order morphed into a market order to sell. If you were lucky you took ‘just’ a $104.90 hit from the previous day’s close.
The gap-down opening took away your chance to get out with the maximum 6% retracement you figured to absorb. Ouch.
Suppose you understood the distinction and ‘wisely’ put in a stop-limit at that $639.20 (-6%) level. Your stop-limit order would have activated just like in the first example. Unlike that unlucky earlier trader, you wouldn’t have been instantly sold out at $575.10 or less. Your now-triggered order would still be sitting, live but unexecuted, awaiting a rebound of more than 11% to get back to the specified limit minimum of $639.20.
Priceline closed at $562.32 without much intraday bouncing. So…you’d still be long PCLN with a one-day paper loss of $117.48 or (-17.28%).
Whether you used a stop-sell (no limit) or a stop-limit order; you ended up with a result you weren’t prepared for.
The two effective ways you could have reduced or eliminated risk?
If you owned a round lot (any multiple of 100 shares) you could have bought a PCLN put option(s). That form of term insurance would have looked good today if you’d bought it while the shares were still flying high.
The elegant way to have avoided the big drop? You could simply have sold your shares at $680 on Tuesday. That would have locked in your gain while eliminating any further upside.
Sometimes the old-fashioned way is still best.
Disclosure: No position
Subscribe RSS
RSS
Trying to insure against loss using stop orders is like having fire insurance on your house that would pay off "most of the time" if your house burned down.
I doubt many people would be happy with homeowners' policies like that.