How to Trade Southern

This page describes the steps that you will need to follow on a daily basis to trade Southern.  There are three steps that need to be followed:

Check for new orders
Cancel existing orders
Adjust existing orders

On some days you will need to take action in all of the above steps whereas on other days you won’t need to do anything.  This will depend on the prevailing market conditions.

The descriptions below assume that you have read and understood the Understanding the View My Trading Systems page.

Check for new orders

The first thing to do is to look in the new orders table for new trades.  In the table below there is a new trade for FLX.

Before the market opens on Thursday 12th April 2007, you would need to place an if done day only (DO) limit order to buy FLX at $5.51. Linked to a good til cancelled (GTC) sell stop order at $5.23.  The entry limit order is above the last closing price of $5.38 and is intended to allow you to get in on the market open.  This means that if the market opens below this price then you will buy at the opening price, but if it opens above the limit price then the limit order will be left in the market until the end of the day.  If the market trades down to that level, your order will be executed at the limit price. You should check with your cfd provider if they can accept these type of limit orders.

Once your entry order is filled the if done good til cancelled (GTC) linked stop at $5.23 will then be automatically placed into the market.

The limit order has a dark green highlight in the Order Purpose column and says ‘Enter Trade’. The trailing stop order has a red highlight in the Order Purpose column and says 'Trailing Stop'.

Cancel existing orders

You will need to check the orders in the ‘cancel existing orders’ table to see if there are any active orders that you have that need to be cancelled.  It will be quite rare for you to need to cancel an existing order when trading Southern.   If you have been using Day Only (DO) orders and linking them correctly (if done) for your new orders then all of the orders listed in the table should have been automatically removed from the market for you by your CFD provider.  Note: different CFD providers deal with DO differently so you should consult your provider to ensure you understand how they deal with them.

Adjust Existing Orders

The next step in the process is to adjust any existing orders.  The table below shows an order for BEC that needs to be adjusted before the market open on Thursday 12th April 2007. The order is a profit target via Trailing Stop. You would need to enter a sell stop order for BEC at $3.95 Good Til Cancelled (GTC).  You won’t need to adjust all of your orders everyday. The table below "orders not requiring adjustment' details such an example. In this case you would make no change to the open orders for CDU and HGI.   You need to understand how your CFD provider deals with your orders because some providers won’t let you adjust an order. If that is the case you may need to cancel the existing order before entering the new one. 

Open Trades

The table below details all current open trades . In  the status column you will see the comment 'Hold' and then all the pertinent details relating to that position.  This enables you to check your order status is correct and in line with the current trading positions.  It is important you check this information because when Southern exits a trade it will not produce a signal for you as the exit will be via the existing stop order already in the market.