How to Trade Stripes

This page describes the steps that you will need to follow on a daily basis to trade Stripes.  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 are two orders that need to be placed on AMD and JBL. There is a limit order and a linked stop order. 

Before the market opens on Thursday 15th March 2007, you would need to place a day only (DO) stop order to sell AMD at $13.68 with an if done linked buy stop at $14.46 good till cancelled (GTC).  This means that if the market was to trade down to $13.68 the sell stop order would be executed and the linked buy stop order would automatically be entered into the market.  If the market didn’t trade down to the stop entry, then neither order would be transacted.
The entry order has a dark green highlight in the Order Purpose column and says ‘Enter Trade’.  The stop order has a pink highlight and has ‘Fixed Stop Loss’ in the Order Purpose column.

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.  If you have been using Day Only (DO) orders and linking them correctly (if done) 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.

The table below shows the list of orders that need to be cancelled before the market open on Monday 12th March.

Adjust Existing Orders

For example, in the table below there is a Trailing Stop Order for a JDSU and PMCS trade.  The open positions were entered on 1st March 2007 and details can be seen in the open trades table.  When the sell stop order to enter the trade was executed, the fixed buy stop order  was automatically placed.  The new Trailing Stop order  for JDSU will be to buy stop $15.48 (highlighted in red with trailing stop as the order purpose) Good Til Cancelled (GTC).  This means if the market goes up and hits $15.48 the trailing stop order will be executed and the position will be closed.  The same logic can be applied to the PMCS order.

 

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 Stripes 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.