Struggling to see why the majority of brokers don't offer trailing stop losses, I believe Barclays does but nobody else. Would of thought it was in the interests of the Stock Brokers to offer this to add value to their offering?
It appears nobody has any real interest in trailing stop losses with stock brokers? Does anyone us them at all??
Yes, I use trailing stops sometimes, and do so with Barclays.
However, I always stress to people that there are times when using automated stops, of any kind, are questionable. Here I am referring to small caps which trade on thin volumes and especially during the quiet weeks from late July through to end August (now). Essentially I always stress to people that during light trading volume the order book can empty out bringing a stop that had been out of harms way suddenly into play. Remember that in setting an automated stop you are placing an order to sell and you are self identifying as a pair of 'weak hands'.
Another point I make to people is that although Barclays offer automated trailing stops they do so only where the listing currency is in GBP or GBp. Sometimes you may be holding a London listed ETF where the listing currency is in USD or EUR - and here the automated stops are not offered because the brokers systems cannot accept the currency variability in real time.
In general I think UK brokers are poor compared with US brokerages. Tradestation being one example in USA where complex technical exits can be executed automatically. With such a high percentage of UK clients losing money on spread betting and CFD accounts you would have to at least suspect that serving clients with poor tools is part of these firms strategies? Perhaps ShareSoc should be pressing the regulator to improve the brokerage tools available to UK clients in order to help drive down the lamentable client performance figures???
I prefer to adjust stops manually after reviewing the situation, although I might consider a trailing stop for a stock that's gone up a lot very quickly - not that this happens often for me.
Saxo have extensive order types many of which I don't yet understand, the utility of which may be apparent only to institutional orders.
I do though make use of wide (15-20%) trailing stops from time to time. These are emergency levels. I've already avoided spreads above 1-2% to ensure liquidity. I prefer though a weekly review (although for ETFs a trailing stop is easy as there is less idiosyncratic movement).
I make much more use of buy stop limit orders. As a momentum trader I try to buy shares in uptrends at a breakout. By definition this requires a consolidation regions high to be exceeded (the buy stop part). To ensure I buy close to that point or not at all I utilise the 'limit' part. Again I enter these at the weekend. Liquidity is again key or they frequently seem to get 'picked off'.
I remain amazed at the lack of order types offered by UK brokers and had to look elsewhere to explore the execution type that I wanted.
I use Automatic Trailing Stop Losses and I am with IG Index. Having said that, I only use it as a backup, as I check and update my stop loss 3 or 4 times a day. But It comes in handy when you travel or go on Holiday
My broker does not have them so I can't use them. Stop losses I can set but rarely do these days, lost too many shares which dipped down for no good reason, Begbies Traynor (LON:BEG) would have been the latest example if I had a stop loss set.
For some types of trading they can be useful.
