Have you placed any wild-ass limit orders?

linter

From Mark, elsewhere: "I had a wild-ass limit order [on CELG] placed at $87 on the off chance a day like Monday presented itself. It actually went down to $86. Very, very surprised that it filled."

Good going, Mark! And that being the case, I wonder if anyone here, including Mark, has any similar orders in place right now. How about it?

Yesterday, at Fidelity, I investigated the idea of placing a few conditional buy orders (instead of limit orders) with a flash crash in mind, based on % decline. The only semi-workable condition I could come up with is: execute order if during any single day, the stock/etf/etc declines by a buyer-set %. I saw that PJP, a pharmaceutical etf, had a single-day flash crash last week of around 45%. Not that I really expect lightning to strike twice, but I put in an order to buy a few shares if the stock drops 35% on any given day. Did it more as an experiment as anything else, just to see.

scott

I haven't and don't use stop-loss orders, either. For all the people who were successful getting buy orders filled at unexpected levels, there were a lot of people who got their sell stop loss order suddenly filled at a way unexpected level before that stock most likely recovered partially or entirely not that long later.

expatsp

Glancing at futures, today might be a good day to try some wild-ass limit buy orders... I've got a few in there.

wxman123

Yup

linter

scott: i'm not talking about stop-loss orders. i don't use them either.

Mark

Make that three, no stop-loss orders for me as well. I do have a few additional wild buy orders in, IBM, LEG, MCK and PG. These represent just stodgy old companies that just continue to do what they do and hand the profits back to their shareholders. As a dividend income investor I find them quite appealing but their current prices have gotten ahead of my level of comfort in owning them.

Edited to add - who say's there no such thing as luck.

slick

I stopped using stop loss orders also, over the past 3 years used them and got stopped out on about 5 stocks to protect profits only see them go right back up. That won't always be the case, but feel this way is better. I do like limit orders though.

scott

Mark said:

Make that three, no stop-loss orders for me as well. I do have a few additional wild buy orders in, IBM, LEG, MCK and PG. These represent just stodgy old companies that just continue to do what they do and hand the profits back to their shareholders. As a dividend income investor I find them quite appealing but their current prices have gotten ahead of my level of comfort in owning them.

Edited to add - who say's there no such thing as luck.

Take it with a grain of salt, but S & P has MCK fair value at $248 and M* has $222. Currently under $200. Not something on my shopping list and I don't want to add further to anything healthcare related (of course I say that, then..), but McKesson is something that I've looked at previously and is a solid company.

Mark

Oops. sorry for the typo, I meant MKC (McCormick) rather than MCK (McKesson). McKesson is interesting but the dividend is too low for my interests at this time and at fair value it would be even lower. I'll let the institutions, indexes and ETF's have this one.

LLJB

I have one wild-ass limit order in right now but it's only a wild-ass order because the stock more than doubled after I put in an order 3 cents below the market. That'll teach me!!

Mark

@LLJB - I hate when it does that!