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bambi
06-07-2006, 05:31 AM
I know a lot of people on this site use stop losses but how do you set them up with your stock broker?

I'm looking at putting in a trailing stop loss based on the ATR of a stock. Currently I'm with DirectBroking but they only seem to support a fixed stop loss.

Do you manually go in and change the stop loss each day? Or do you export the daily prices to a spreadsheet/trading program and then if the close is below your stop loss (calculated in the spreadsheet) you manually enter a sell?

Neither of these seem ideal.

Bambi

Ricardo
06-07-2006, 07:13 AM
bambi
For both Direct Broking and ASB go in manually and change it.
Etrade (US) and probably most other US brokers have software that trails the stops automatically. I guess because of the nature of our market the majority of NZ broker's customers tend to be more buy and hold, so for them its not critical.
Anyway, its easy enough to change an order.

Unless you have great discipline entering a sell order manually leaves you the option of having second thoughts. Also, you could be distracted (job requirements, holiday etc) and have your stock plummet (TEL, FTX) when you can't access your spreadsheet.

Much safer to place the stop as soon as your Buy is confirmed.