Broker IB, what order type is this hypothetical buy considered?

Hello everyone, First time poster long time lurker. As mentioned I am with Interactive brokers. The hypothetical I'm going to state I originally assumed was a trailing limit if touched order but after speaking with an IB rep on the chat found out that is not the case. The IB rep also was unable to tell me what order this may fall under. It is entirely possible such an order does not exist but figured Id ask here anyway.

XYZ trades at $100, I think it is overvalued so I dont want to even look at it unless it goes down to $95, simple enough set a limit so the highest price Id pay is $95. But then my y logic is that hey if it hits 95 its most likely in a short term decline or some form of a decline, so I would like to put a trailing buy order on this. So id like this hypothetical order to activate a Trailing buy once the stock hits $95, but as a safety measure I dont want to pay anymore than $95 so if it hits 95 then goes back up the order is nulled.

I could just do a trailing buy but as I have seen how it works if I put a $5 trail on it at $100 and it goes to 105 it would trigger, and on the other side it would have to hit $90 before 95 is a possible price.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you all may have. I am wondering if I will have to get into conditional formatting to make something like this work (a bit out of my area of expertise at this time.

Trouble is that final rule ie "I dont want to pay anymore than $95 so if it hits 95 then goes back up the order is nulled"

Assume the first trade at or below 95 is a sell order , what if the next (probable) buy was at 95.10?

Thanks for the quick response!

I thought this is a limit rule, you are setting a bottom or top on what you want to pay. in the hypothetical scenario I'm OK with the slippage aspect of the trade (and I guess I should of stated that), I just dont want it to hit 95, activate the trail and then run up to $100 again. I guess in that definition a Stop would be fine too but we are still looking a the aspect that I want to remain as close to $95 that can get give or take slippage all while adding a trailing aspect to it so I can ride it down further. I got in on JCP when I saw it was closing in on the 52week low, once it hit it, I put a trailing buy and therefore I was able to get it at a great price (currently my best performing holding). I know I cant always count on the bounce back up, but It was somewhat luck that I came across it on my screener and it was closing in on the 52week low.

What I am essentially trying to do is set some trades where it will take minimal oversight to me, I dont want to be worried that it hit 95 my trail started and then it bounced up higher. I am finding that I spend to much time tracking my stocks (multiple times a day) that it is psychologically damaging me.

What your asking for is an order that solves the Entry problem.

A Limit order is to take profit when price reaches a certain goal, your talking about a trailing buy order which doesn't exist. Don't get me wrong i wish it did, having an order type that gaurenteed that you entered at the exact bottom or top of a trend is a traders dream but they don't exist because it would need you to be able to predict the future to see if price was going any lower before moving the order.

Thank you Adam,

While I am drawing closer to the conclusion that the order I seek may not exist you state the trailing buy does not exist. Just a heads up (while it may not exist in my requested capacity) I have placed numerous trailing buys with my broker. Works great if the stock is in a downtrend, of course as may be obvious there is no protection from upside aside from the limit I place on it at the time I will not go any higher than that. I just cant seem to figure how to set the limit or start of the trail lower than the current price.

MDavisUSF said:

Thank you Adam,

While I am drawing closer to the conclusion that the order I seek may not exist you state the trailing buy does not exist. Just a heads up (while it may not exist in my requested capacity) I have placed numerous trailing buys with my broker. Works great if the stock is in a downtrend, of course as may be obvious there is no protection from upside aside from the limit I place on it at the time I will not go any higher than that. I just cant seem to figure how to set the limit or start of the trail lower than the current price.

Click to expand...

As you say I think you'd need your own conditional entry to do what you want and then submit the trailing buy order - maybe play around with demos of Multicharts or Ninja to see if you get them to do what you want.

I think your confusing trailing buy orders with trailing stop orders. Otherwise can you link me to your brokers literature on trailing buy entry orders, because what your describing would mean the broker would have to speculate/have knowledge of the price move to know the next tick was to the downside.

AdamTheAnalyst said:

I think your confusing trailing buy orders with trailing stop orders. Otherwise can you link me to your brokers literature on trailing buy entry orders, because what your describing would mean the broker would have to speculate/have knowledge of the price move to know the next tick was to the downside.

Click to expand...

You are correct, It is a trailing stop but set as a buy rather than sell I am sorry I misunderstood you.

Regarding the conditional it appears that wont work as I can only attach conditionals to limit, market and relative orders. I dont know anything about Ninja or multicharts, I will see if these are options to look at

OK Ninjatrader and Multicharts seem way to complicated, I dont know if that is a possible or viable option there. Still open to any feedback!