A stop buy in the spread; I guess your stategy is to buy at your stop if the last trades rises (an ask lowering and hitting a rising bid). You would use such an order if an equity is at a resistance and expected to explode once the resistance is taken out. Or expect the price to pull back first before a new leg up.
A stop buy order actually is an order at market at a minimum price ( the trader would be prepared to buy at any price if, i.e. the resistance is broken).
If the ask is higher then the stop, first condition, the at market part condition would be immediate.
Only way is to trade from a 'broker assisted' account and say what you want. The broker would wait for the 'last trade' to be higher then your stop then fire the 'at market' order, or enter the stop limit when the ask goes lower.
A better way would be the stop limit, order becomes limit when the stop is hit. Always use limits unless you want to be in at any price.
But again, if the stop is in the spread, the condition is already met. Hence rejected.
Some discount brokerages can enter such orders. Not really, the order remains on your or their computer, waiting for the conditions to be met before sending the proper order to the market, which then usually is a simple buy market or buy limit.
If I am correct, optionsexpress has a kind of mu;ti-legged order entry, somewhat multi-market.
Other discount brokers give you a way to enter the order automatically from your compter, allowing you any strategy.
But ther, either you use a front-end with secure session and still have to click on the 'trade' button, or you are allowed direct ftp access (not sftp), account # and passwd sent in clear.
Easier to go through 'broker assisted' and kill the man if he missed the trade. <g>
lvlamb a k a
Louis V. Lambrecht
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. (Mark Twain)
AI
