setting buy price

How do I set a price to buy at and not the market price?

Make sure you are on the Advanced Trading Interface (LHS on trading screen).

Then you can set buy or sell price and quantity.

Thanks TraderV.
Do you know if I short sell do I have to buy before stocks reach 0 or if they reach 0 is that my buy price??
GJK

If you sell short a stock and it closes at 0, in effect you will have bought them back at 0. You don't need to buy them back before the stock closes, but you can if you want too.

Thanks MaxTheCreator.
That makes it a lot easier.
GJK

I set a sell price for stock I had bought to insure against a significant price movement. But it traded immediately at the market price. I used the Advanced trading Interface, set a low price - and can't work out what I did wrong. Any thoughts?

I've tried a couple of times but keep losing money in the process of trying to work it out.....

WildOscar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I set a sell price for stock I had bought to
> insure against a significant price movement. But
> it traded immediately at the market price. I used
> the Advanced trading Interface, set a low price -
> and can't work out what I did wrong. Any
> thoughts?
>
> I've tried a couple of times but keep losing money
> in the process of trying to work it out.....
>

Hi WildOscar,

Just guessing here, based on your post but...

You said you set a sell price to insure against a significant loss movement. It sounds like you were trying to put in a 'stop-loss' which is a feature that has been requested, but not implemented thus far.

You don't give numbers, so I'll make some up to illustrate what I am guessing you actually did.

Original board showed:

Top two Bids:

10 @ 40c
10 @ 45c

Top two Offers:

10 @ 50c
10 @ 55c

You accepted the top offer on the board, and bought at 50c

You wanted to sell if the price got down to 40c (to stop your loss exceeding 10c per each).

Therefore, you entered an offer to sell at 40c.

Immediately after you made your offer, the board would show:

Top two Bids:

10 @ 40c
10 @ 45c

Top two Offers:

10 @ 40c -> This is the offer you just made to sell
10 @ 55c

The system sees that you are offering to sell at 40c, and someone is offering to buy at 45c (the 45c bid being on the board first), so it matches your offer against their bid at 45c.

Net result: You bought at 50c, then immediately sold at 45c, realising a 5c per each loss.



If you were trying to implement a stop loss, you are out of luck for now as that facility doesn't exist here yet.

HTH,

Alan.

Thanks Alan - I was trying to add a stop-loss as you say. Makes sense now.

I can't remember the exact numbers but I bought at about 67cents and then put it in a sell offer for about 50cents - to minimise any loss if it did occur. But it sold immediately.

Is there a reason why a 'stop-loss' isn't offered? It would really help if you can't watch highly traded, near to closing stocks throughout the day...

WildOscar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is there a reason why a 'stop-loss' isn't offered?
> It would really help if you can't watch highly
> traded, near to closing stocks throughout the
> day...
>

It is a feature that has been requested, but there is limited coding resource available at IPredict, and it hasn't made it to the top of the list yet.

For now, all you can do is watch closely, or don't trade those types of contracts.

Alan.