Furthering its mission to bring institutional investor-grade trading services and tools to the independent trader, online broker TradeKing has expanded its advanced order capabilities, giving individual investors more automated trading power.
Now, TradeKing clients can place the following advanced orders: Contingent, Trailing Stop, One-Triggers-Other, and the most recently introduced One-Cancels-Other.
"Just like institutional investors, our clients want as much control over their own financial destinies as they can get," said Don Montanaro, CEO of TradeKing. "By expanding our advanced order capabilities, we enable individuals to program exactly how they want their next trading play to go, bracketing their positions on certain equities and options to help manage outcomes. It's about empowering the independent investor to achieve his or her own investment goals.
"For example, you can protect a position that was say purchased for $4.00 and then rose to $7.00 with alternate orders to either sell if the stock or option reaches $9.00, or drops to $6.00 - this offers a level of power and protection only the pros used to have, helping them relax and enjoy their time away from the office."
More about TradeKing's Advanced Orders
TradeKing account holders can access these order features from the regular order entry screens (stocks or options) by simply clicking on the Advanced Orders menu.
One-Triggers-Other (OTO) With a One-Triggers-Other order, clients can enter an initial order and place a second one that is contingent upon the fill of the first order. With One Triggers Other, clients are actually placing two orders at once. The first is sent to the market immediately, the second is sent to the market only when the first one is filled and it applies to both stock to stock or stock to option trades.
One-Cancels-Other (OCO) Clients can enter two orders simultaneously; when one order is filled the other order is automatically cancelled. This feature also works for stock to stock or stock to option trades.
Trailing Stop A trailing stop order is an order in which the stop trigger price is specified in terms of points, or a percentage above or below a security's market price (bid, ask, or last). If the security's price moves in a favorable direction after the order is placed, the stop trigger price will adjust itself automatically and "trail" the market. If the market moves towards the trigger price, the stop trigger will remain constant and the pending order will be sent after the trigger price has been reached. Stop orders remain "hidden" from the market and competing traders until the stop price is hit.
Contingent A Contingent order is a regular GTC, Market or Limit order that is sent to the market only after a certain contingency is met. TradeKing clients decide the contingency when they place the order with TradeKing. The contingency can be either the price of a stock or an option. When the price of the stock or the option that the client has set is met, their order will be released to the market place.