Question about buying after shorting

I use Oanda demo account.

This has happened to me a few times now and I want to know if there is a way around it :confused:

What my problem is, is that I will short a stock, say 10,000 units. If I see a change of movement, I will long either 5,000-10,000 units.

Instead of this making 2 seperate transactions/bids , my second bid will cancel/difference my first one.

How can I prevent this from happening? I don’t want to over ride my first bid, I simply want to counter it with another bid.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.

That is because Oanda does not allow it.

Wow, I didn’t expect that as an aswer. Is what I am trying to do not NORMAL, or is Oanda just slacking in this option (meaning do other companies allow this and if so, which ones)?

Thanks for the reply Vatslav, I am open ears for more input from everyone.

As far as I know, some brokers allow that while others don’t :-/
I think it’s called “hedging”

First things first, you’re not trading “stock”. The term you should be using is “pair”.

Second thing when you’ve executed a transaction you have a trade or position, not a “bid”. A bid is an order to buy, or the price at which you would be interested in buying, not an actual transaction.

In terms of having simultaneous long and short positions, Oanda will not allow it in the same account, but you can set up sub-accounts and trade in opposite directions in them. Not as easy as being able to do it in the same account, but it’s doable.

Thanks for helping with the terms and clearing up my question.

Why doesn’t Oanda allow this? I mean, it is not illegal and they are still making money off the spread. I guess I am missing why this isn’t an option.

Thanks for helping out.

They probably set up their system to view simultaneous long and short positions as offsets to the extent that their sizes match, just like they would be in basically every other market.

If you sold 100 shares of Google short then bought 50 shares, your broker would have you short 50 shares, not short 100 shares and long 50 shares. In the futures market if you sold 100 Corn futures contracts then bought 50 contracts, again your broker would have you net short 50 contracts, not short 100 and long 50.

That makes sense.

I don’t like it, but it makes sense :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you for explaining.

I am using the FXCM Demo account and they allow you to go long and short in the same pair without cancelling your first position.