digger
".It only means when it hits that price your stocks go out at market ,and you could get ,like a fire sale ,10-15 cents lower than you set"
Not necessarily true, In my experience it's never happened..When I use stop limits on RBC I set 2 prices The stop and the limit..Example
Stop $1.08 Limit $1.06
what happens is that the share is sold for first priority of $1.08 but will be sold as a last option at $1.06..When the stock can't be sold in the specified range the order remains open and no transaction occurs. A few times the market moved so fast my stop loss didn't work but no shares were sold.
Sharky:
"Stop loss is a dangerous thing.Many times the MM's just bring down the sp to collect all the stop losses and then sp started to rise again"
Absolutely stop losses are dangerous, that's why you have to be extremely careful exactly for the reason you mentioned. The idea is to protect yourself against an uncertainty ( such as the closing date on June 5) and if your stop loss gets taken out you stay by the computer until you feel the bottom has been hit then buy back in. Then of course you can either buy more shares or the same amount and pocket the cash difference.
Stop losses are suicide if you just set them and forget them.