Guaranteed Stop New Trader

[Guest Markuskotze]

Good evening,

 

I am completely new to trading, I have spent the first couple of weeks doing all the courses at the online academy.

I want to start trading live, the problem is on my account, I can only set a guaranteed stop loss, which is up to 500 pips away,

surely this is not safer that being able to set the stop loss 30 pips away?

Any advice on this will be much appreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

[Guest Merly]

This probably isn't related  to only being able to use guaranteed stops, but the IG stop system is pretty worthless. In their wisdom, they only allow you to set stops a certain distance away from the current price, rather than where you want them.

In order to get round this, you have to use an order in the opposite direction as a stop. For example, say you are long at 10 pips a point and want to have a stop 8 pips away, but IG bizarrely has decided the stop has to be at least 25 pips away. What you do is put on a sell order (or vice-versa) 8 pips away for 10 pips a point instead. That way, if it gets filled then it closes your long position.

Naturally, IG doesn't like this 'workaround', so (unfilled) orders are used in the calculation of your margin to stop you using them. Not so bad if you only trade one or two assets with minimal positions, but it means you can't put multiple orders on the system unless you have a crazy big account size.

Sorry if this doesn't exactly answer your question, but the only way to put stops where you actually want them is to use orders in the opposite direction, and only for one or two positions on small accounts.

[Guest Markuskotze]

Hi, Thank you very much for the advice. It is definitely a solution to my problem.