Could someone kindly give some thought to what may be happening here....
I use ATM Strategies for trades - fairly standard stuff so I won't provide lots of detail unless requested.
So I have DOMs with preselected ATMs basically all the same in principle differing in Stop & Target placement and number of Contracts depending on Instrument, all OCO.
I use Market Orders so to Enter just click on DOM either side of ladder above or below price Long or Short and the ATM Strategy takes care of the Entry.
The ATM Strategy manages the trade with preset partial take profit if I let it, but as likely I'll discretionary manage manually with a middle or left mouse button click for market or limit orders - to take partial profits, and to put in manual targets and stops.
I don't use automated trailing Stops. All fairly straightforward and for the most part no problem.
The issue - very occasionally I'll wish to move the ATM Stop(s) with price to trail. To do this, I simply click on the DOM on 'Price' (i.e. in the middle column), between my ATM Stop and current price, wherever I want it to move to, Here's the thing - mostly behaviour is as I would expect - my Stop (which may be one or more contracts remaining) moves to the price at which I clicked on the DOM. But occasionally doing so closes the remaining position(s).
This doesn't occur very often because usually the trade will exit by hitting target or hitting a stop placed manually above the ATM stop, so I don't have a heap of examples & each time it occurs I scratch my head and wonder what I stupidly did differently such as clicking on left or right of ladder by mistake, or otherwise how did it happen. I kick the dog and move on. But it has happened enough times now that I'm sure I'm not inadvertently placing an opposing order to the remaining contract on the DOM (it's usually one remaining contract, trailing a runner but I couldn't say that is exclusively the case, or otherwise. It is just a matter of behaviour that I won't be doing this until the trade has moved considerably and I think about trailing the remaining ATM Stop(s). I had wondered if it 'mattered' if current price was visible in the ladder when I do this, e.g. much increased ADR so more common that price & Stop exceeds my DOM height) but got lost down that rabbit-hole and decided it shouldn't do this (wherever price actually was even if I couldn't see it)
Any ideas anybody?
Edit: I had a magic moment and have looked at the Trade Performance Entry for the final execution and it shows as Target hit. The ATM in question is 3 contracts, each with the same 2000 tick target which was not reached. So what seems to be happening (and what it seemed to me) is instead of dragging my Stop up, clicking on the DOM below price is dragging my target down to below current price (where I want my Stop to trail) and therefore causing the Target to execute. This rules out me having inadvertently placed a market order. Can anyone explain under what conditions this can possibly be expected behaviour and what to do to prevent it happening? The only way I can see this being expected is if I were to single click on the ATM Target on the DOM to 'grab' it, and then drag it and place it below price (for a long entry)? i.e. simply put if I click on the DOM between price and Stop it moves Stop toward price, if I click on the other side it moves it away, if I click on the DOM between price and Target it moves Target toward price, if I click on the other side it moves it away.
Kind regards,
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