I recently was able to get my broker to help me enact an "equity stop" on my trading account as a protective measure.
What precisely is an "equity stop" you may ask?
Basically it is an amount of money (of my choosing) that, if lost during a trading day, triggers my positions to be closed and my trading to be suspended until the beginning of the next trading day which happens to be 5pm EST.
I have set this level slightly outside of the amount of money I mentally tolerate losing in a single day because under all normal conditions I will stop myself out if trading poorly and just walk away.
But sometimes it isn't that easy. Imagine if during a fast moving market you place an order and are unable to get your stop in on time because of any number of things (market moving too fast, loss of power, loss of internet connection, etc...). If the market moves hard against you then you can be in some BIG trouble. But if you have an equity stop, you will be protected more than you would be otherwise.
Not a bad idea huh? Think about it as a way of giving yourself an electronic risk manager to pull the plug should things go bad.
So again my question...what other brokers have this feature? In my mind you can never be too careful!
What precisely is an "equity stop" you may ask?
Basically it is an amount of money (of my choosing) that, if lost during a trading day, triggers my positions to be closed and my trading to be suspended until the beginning of the next trading day which happens to be 5pm EST.
I have set this level slightly outside of the amount of money I mentally tolerate losing in a single day because under all normal conditions I will stop myself out if trading poorly and just walk away.
But sometimes it isn't that easy. Imagine if during a fast moving market you place an order and are unable to get your stop in on time because of any number of things (market moving too fast, loss of power, loss of internet connection, etc...). If the market moves hard against you then you can be in some BIG trouble. But if you have an equity stop, you will be protected more than you would be otherwise.
Not a bad idea huh? Think about it as a way of giving yourself an electronic risk manager to pull the plug should things go bad.
So again my question...what other brokers have this feature? In my mind you can never be too careful!