Buy stop sell stop buy limit sell limit, what's the difference?

Beginner Questions
#1

Hi!

I am currently one week plus into trading and I have encountered this very weird question that keeps lurking in my head as I go on pressing the buttons on Metatrader4.

Sometimes when I punch in the TP, SL and price, and when i choose to long it, I click Buy Stop, it says that my SL or TP is wrong, so I change it to Buy Limit, within 1 second, the pending order successfully placed music plays, other times I do not even need to change it. I juggle between this two, I usually click on Buy Stop first, if it doesn’t work, I click Buy Limit and it usually does the trick. Likewise for short positions.

Seriously, what is the difference between Buy Stop, Sell Stop, Buy Limit and Sell Limit? I have tried my best ot research online and to read other people’s post and articles on it but I still do not understand it.

Anyone with me on this? Could someone please help a newbie here by enlightening him with simple, clear and short answer?

Please help,

Looking forward.

Lester

Add : I think it occurred a few times, when even before the trade got triggered, it already ended by touching the SL. Sometimes even if it touches it, it doesn’t cancel the pending order. I believe this has some relations with regards to the type of “Purchase” requested.

Please help all sifus!

Looking forward!

:slight_smile:

#2

Hi Lester,

[B]Short answer[/B] — simple and short, but maybe not clear

If your selection of [I]price, SL,[/I] and [I]TP[/I] cannot be entered as a BUY STOP order, but it can be entered as a BUY LIMIT order, then the explanation is this: You are specifying a LONG entry at a price BELOW the current price — which requires a BUY LIMIT order. If you were specifying a LONG entry at a price ABOVE the current price, you would need to use a BUY STOP order.

[B]Long answer[/B] — definitely not simple, and not short, but (I hope) clear

Here’s a LINK to a previous post dealing with order types.

Scroll down to the table in the lower portion of this post. It might help you to visualize these order types, and how they are used.

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