Actually, you have to be careful with Stop Loss Orders. Let's say you buy a stock for $20, and set a normal stop loss at 10% or $ 18. Your sell order is then placed into the system as a market order once it crosses 18.. If the next trade is $ 17, then that's what you get. Different brokerages have somewhat different terminology for Stop Quote and Stop Quote Limit orders.. read up on that.
Also, when you set up tight stops, at least in the days before electronic trading, and certainly in thin market stops, specialists trading in your stock often did what was termed "clearing out the stops". In the case I referenced above, they might have a stock that was fairly stable at 18.25, but see that there were numerous "stop" orders at 18, 17.75 (days before decimals), and lower the next trade to 17.5 or so trigger the stops and then reset the price back to 18.25.. That was so they could simplify their book. I actualy had that happen to a preferred issue I had a stop on not too long ago..
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