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Stop loss and trigger buy orders
Stop loss and trigger buy orders

Stop loss and trigger buy orders lets you set the price at which your buy or sell order for a US investment gets sent to the market.

Ruby Gardner avatar
Written by Ruby Gardner
Updated over a year ago

Stop loss orders may protect an investment from potential losses, while trigger buy orders may help to take advantage of share price movements without having to constantly monitor share prices yourself.

If the trigger price is met, your stop loss or trigger buy order becomes a market order and is placed in a queue to be filled. From this point, typical market order processes and timing apply.

Stop loss and trigger buy orders are currently only available for US investments.

Set up stop loss or trigger buy order

When you set up a stop loss order, you choose:

  • the price that’ll trigger your sell order to be sent to market, and

  • how many shares you want to sell if the investment’s share price drops to (or below) your trigger price.

When you set up a trigger buy order, you choose:

  • the price that will trigger your buy order to be sent to market, and

  • how many shares you want to buy if the investment’s share price increases to (or above) your trigger price.

For step-by-step guidance on placing an order for US investments, check out our article for buying investments.

Prices and timing

A stop loss or trigger buy order is placed as a market order when your trigger price is reached during regular trading hours—usual market order processing applies. Price changes during extended trading hours won’t trigger a market order.

You can cancel a pending trigger order, but you won’t be able to edit it (you’ll need to cancel it and place it again). If your trigger price isn’t reached within 30 days, your trigger order will be automatically cancelled and the money returned to your Wallet (if a trigger buy).

There’s no way to confirm when (or if) your order will fill, and it’s possible that your shares will be bought or sold at a higher or lower price than the trigger price.

Order cancellation

Stop loss and trigger buy orders may be cancelled by our executing broker in certain circumstances, including where an investment is subject to a corporate action such as a dividend, share split or consolidation, or for other reasons at their discretion.

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