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Does a stop loss work outside of market hours?

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finance_analyst joined discussion · Nov 12, 2020 10:25
A short answer is no (below I explain why). But there are ways around it (below I explain how).

A classic stop loss (=if triggered sell immediately for any price) doesn’t work outside of market hours (4AM to 9:30AM and 4:00PM to 8:00PM) because it triggers market order and only limit orders are permitted outside of market hours due to wide bid/ask spreads.

The solution would be a conditional order (not all brokers offer it, I trade with Moomoo)

Example.

Need to set a stop loss of $110 for my 10 shares of AAPL that will work outside of market hours as long as I’m holding the position.
Go to Conditional orders. “If falls to $110, sell at limit price of $108 (allowing $2 slippage: it will sell for the best price available not lower than $108, but if there are no buyers for $108 and higher it wouldn’t sell then; if you need to sell for any price, put $1 then), 10 shares, 30 days expiration (can chose: today, tomorrow, 1 week, 2 weeks, 30 days), allow to fill outside of market hours.
Does a stop loss work outside of market hours?
It might happen that you close your position before this conditional order expires and in that case it will open a short position for you if AAPL falls to/below $110. To prevent that from happening, there is one more setting on the bottom: Short: Not allowed
Does a stop loss work outside of market hours?
If you are just making first steps in trading, I wrote an article “How I learned how to trade” https://link.medium.com/4xoIMGE2Gbb . I started trading a little over a year ago. See if you could benefit from my experience. Good luck with your journey.
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