Trading Order Mistake

August 31st, 2006

Have you ever placed a buy order when you were supposed to place a buy to cover order? My short position in GES hit my trailing stop just now and I realized that I made this exact mistake.

buy-instead-of-buy-to-cover

It took me a few seconds to figure out what the heck I had done! I was on the phone when I was putting my stop in, so I’m sure that had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, this was a wake up call for me. I’ve always heard about how easy it is to screw up an order, but this is the first that I can remember. Luckily no damage was done. My broker negated the positions and everything is exactly the same as if I entered the order correctly to begin with.

I guess this is another reason I should have taken today off. Is there wind in anybody’s trading sail today? ;-)

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  • 3 Comments

    1. Michael Said,

      August 31, 2006 @ 7:02 pm

      A nice thing about CyberTrader… you just enter an order to close your position. The software figures it out.

    2. Dave Said,

      September 1, 2006 @ 5:06 am

      That is nice, Mike. Good to know.

    3. stocktickr blog » Blog Archive » Not a Black Swan, But a Greyish One Said,

      September 28, 2006 @ 2:04 am

      [...] Today was another wake up call (kind of like the previous one). I took a long position in TSO shortly after 10AM when it formed a tight 15 minute candle after gapping up at the open. As I’d hoped, the price headed up in my direction for several minutes. [...]

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